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HISTORY 


Ul 


THE  COUNCIL  OF  TRENT. 


KRC)M    Tilt;    KREN'CII    OK 


L    F.   BUNGENEH, 

AnnoR  OK  "thi-:  priksi'  and  tiik  m'(H'EN.»T,"  ki-c. 


KDITKD,  FROM   THE   SRCOND   LONDON    FDITION, 


WITH  A  SI MMAllV   oF  TIIK  AC'IS  ul'  TIIK  C^OUXCTL 


BY  JOHN  M'rLI.NTOCK,  U.D. 


N  E  ^     Y  0  11  K  : 
HARPER    &    B  R  O  T  H  K  R  S,    P  T  13  L  I  S  H  E  R  S. 


(RANK  I.  IN     SQUARE 


1855. 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  one  thou- 
sand eight  Imndred  and  fifty-five,  by 

HARPER    &    BROTHERS, 

In  the  Clerk's  Office  for  the  Southern  District  of  New  York. 


U    ^ 


C  0  N  T  K  A  T  ,S. 


TAor. 

Introdictios  by  tiik  Amkuican  KruToK xvii 

Summary  of  tmk  Decrees  and  Canons  ok  the  Counciu      .     .     .        \xi\ 

Translator's  Preface      .     .  xwviii 

Author's  ruEFACE xl 

BOOK    1. 

PRKLIMIN ARIES    OK   THE    COINCIL:    ITS    ORGANIZATION 

AND  AUTHORITY. 

CHAPTER    I. 

(1520-1545.) 

UNIVERSAL    CRY    FOR    A    COUNCIL:    OPPOSITION    OF   THE    POPES.       THE   COUNCIL 

OF   TRENT    AT    L.VST  SUMMONED. 

Inti*oduction — Fii*st  wislies — i^nint  Rorimrd  and  Lutlicr — Awakeninc — 
Antipathies — Leo  X. — Illusion — Twenty-four  years  to  wait — Adrian 
VI. — His  theory  of  Indulgences — Projected  reforms — Projected  ex- 
teniiinations — The  Popedom  in  Germany — Admissions  made  by  the 
Pope — ^The  hundred  grievances — Clement  VII.  and  the  Diet  of  Nu- 
remberg— Counter-diet — Charles  V.  and  Francis  I. — Tiattle  of  Pavia 
— Two  letters — The  Colonna< — The  Throne  and  the  Tiara — The  Con- 
stable de  IJourbon — The  Sack  of  Rome — Hypocrisy — Reconciliation 
— Interview  at  Bologna — The  Augsburg  Confession — Christ  and  Be- 
lial— There  is  no  fear  of  the  heavens  falling — The  League  of  Smal- 
kalde — The  Turks — Geneva — Paul  III. — Ten  \-ear3  yet — ^The  Sons 
of  the  Pope — Negotiations — Difficulties — Mantua — Vicenza — Trent 
— War  breaks  out  again — Hostilities  cease — The  Council  is  about  to 
open — Retrospect 1 

CHAPTER    II. 

(1545.) 
FIRST    CONVOC.\TION  :    INTUIGLta,    DIFFICULTIF-'S,    AND    DELAYS. 

The  arrival  of  the  Legates — ^Thrce  years'  indulgence — Scruples — Four 
himdred  seat.-^  and  no  })ishops — Parturiunt  monies — ^The  imagination 
of  Father  Hinor — Simple  arithmetic — A  notable  admission — CEcu- 
menical  Councils — The  Chureh'.s  Representatives — .bTusalem  and 
Trent — I)i[)lomacy — Had  the  Protestants  promined  obedience — Every 
epoch  has  its  fixed  idea — Luther's  trepidation — The  real  object  of 
his  wishes — \'iciou3  circle — Where  was  the  doctrine  of  Infallibility 


IV  CONTENTS. 

— Affairs  of  Cologne — Who  was  iu  the  wrong — Complications — By 
what  did  the  Council  hold? — The  Procurators — Infallibility  by  Del- 
egation— Charles  V.  and  heresy — The  Pope's  offers — The  priest- 
king — The  Morals  of  the  Popes — New  Scandals — Of  happy  mem- 
ory—  Papal  Infallibility  —  Certain  questions — The  Popedom  at 
Rome 20 

CHAPTER   III. 

(1545-46.) 
THE    COUNCIL   AT    LAST   OPENED.       SESSIONS    L,    IL,    III. 

The  Bishops  begin  to  be  impatient — First  Session,  13th  December, 
1545 — Formidable  task — What  Catholicism  had  been  hitherto — 
Bossuet  and  St.  Augustine — Progress  in  Religion — Reasonable  In- 
consistencies and  absurd  Logic — A  wise  Decree — In  whose  name 
was  it  to  be  published — Pope  and  Council — Prcesidentihus  legatis — 
Foxes — Second  Session — Protests — Were  appearances  really  saved 
— People  know  not  where  to  begin — Indecision  and  Alarm — "Day 
of  Battle!  Glorious  Day!" — Dangerous  medley — What  the  weak- 
minded  may  think — The  Queen  of  the  Virtues — Credo — Third  Ses- 
sion— ^An  able  General — The  Italians  at  Trent — Their  Oath — The 
Consent  of  the  Church 42 

CHAPTER   IV. 

(1546.) 
DEATH   OF   LUTHER.       THE    AUTHORITY    OK   THE    COUNCIL.       FICTITIOUS    UNITY. 

Luther  dies — Shut,  shut  the  Bible ! — Let  us  open  it — The  question  of 
Authority — Its  bearing  exaggerated — What  is  Authority  in  Religion 
— What  can  it  be — Dilemma — What,  at  bottom,  is  the  Submission 
of  those  who  think — What  is  Authority  without  Force — God  might 
have,  God  ought  to  have — What  know  you  of  that — Three  Objects — 
To  regulate  the  faith,  to  preserve  the  faith,  to  maintain  unity — 
Regulate  the  Faith — What  that  supposes  and  to  what  it  leads — To 
preserve  the  Faith — Have  they  succeeded — Variations — ^An  eternal 
Burthen — Unity — Does  God  intend  it — Conclusion 61 


BOOK   II. 

HISTORY  OF  THE  COUNCIL  FROM  ITS   THIRD    SESSION 
(1546)  TO  ITS  REMOVAL  FROM  TRENT  (1547). 

CHAPTER   I. 

(1546.) 

SESSION     IV.       DECREES    ON     THE    RULE    OF    FAITH,    THE    CANON    AND    USE    OF 

SCRIPTURE,    AND    THE    VULGATE. 

Homage  to  the  Bible — What  is  Tradition — Limits  to  credibility — What 
the  Fathers  thought  of  it;  and  the  councils — What  it  had  hitherto 
been — Papal  aberration — Of  what  is  Holy  Scripture  composed — 
Why  had  this  still  to  be  decided — The  divines  at  the  council — The 
Apocrypha — Three  opinions — Strange  omnipotence — The  Vulgate — 
Its  history  down  to  the  time  of  the  council — ^The  decree  would  admit 


CONTENTS.  V 

no  delay — Results — The  Vulgate  as  it  stands — Whose  province  is 
it  to  interpret  Scripture — Demi-liberalism — Absolute  bondage — The 
god  of  Epicurus — Historical  question — The  Old  Testament — The  New 
— The  Fathers — The  last  of  the  Fathers — Saint  Augustine  and  the 
Bible  Societies — A  false  quotation — Decree  on  the  reading  and  the 
interpretation  of  the  Bible — Fate  of  this  decree  in  the  hands  of  the 
popes — Deadly  Pastures — Port-Royal — Liberty  in  Roman  Catholic- 
ism— Sophisms — Difficulties  in  drawing  up  the  decree — The  Anath- 
emas— Historical  aspect  of  the  case — Hesitations  in  the  council — 
Decrees  on  the  faith — Decrees  on  reformation — Alarms — Precautions 
— Fourth  Session — The  pope's  confirmation — What  had  been  gained 
— Perpetual  compromise — External  difficulties *77 

CHAPTER   II. 

(1546.) 
SESSION    V.       DECREES   ON   ORIGfNAL   SIN    AND   ON   PREACHING.       THE   IMMACU- 
LATE  CONCEPTION. 

Altercations  about  the  choice  of  subjects — Preaching — The  bishops  and 
the  monks — Mutual  recriminations — Indemnifications  to  the  bishops 
— General  relaxation  of  morals  to  the  advantage  of  the  popes — Lu- 
theran opinion — Question  of  original  sin — Four  problems — Infants 
dying  without  baptism — The  Roman  catechism — All  explanations 
but  by  anathemas,  abandoned — Reflections  on  this  subject — Five 
canons — The  immaculate  conception  —  Historical  views  —  Fluctua- 
tions— How  the  Roman  dogmas  establish  themselves — Fii-th  Session 
— Disputed  votings 114 

CHAPTER   III. 

(1546.) 
SESSION    VI.       TROUBLES    IN   THE    COUNCIL.       EPISCOPAL    RESIDENCE.       DECREES 

ON    GRACE   AND    JUSTIFICATION. 

The  ambassadors — Peter  Danes — Holy  War — Jubilee — Miscalculations 
— Alarms  on  the  side  of  Trent — Projects  for  transferring  the  council 
to  another  place — Victories  of  Charles  V. — Fresh  altercations  on  the 
choice  of  subjects — Residence — Historical  view — The  legates  severe 
at  the  expense  of  the  bishops,  and  the  bishops  severe  at  the  expense 
of  the  pope — Grace — Two  extremes — AVhat  is  in  truth  the  Romish 
doctrine — Warm  disputes — What  we  are  to  believe  respecting  grace 
— Draft  of  the  decree — Herculean  task — Inconsistency  and  audacity 
— Quarrel  betwixt  Soto  and  Catherini — No  solution — Benefices — 
Historical  view — Pious  donations — Origin  of  the  quarrel  about  the 
Divine  right — Efforts  to  keep  the  pope  out  of  it — Decree  on  residence 
— Abuses  without  end — Samson's  courage — Sixth  Session — To  be 
still  and  adore 128 

CHAPTER   IV. 

(1547.) 

SESSION     VII.        CANONS     AND    DECREES     ON     THE     SACRAMENTS.        PLURALITIES. 

GOVERNMENT   OF   CATHEDRALS. 

Question  of  the  Sacraments — The  number  seven — Historical  and  dog- 
matical difficulties — Oddities — Omnia  a  {}^rts<o  instituted — How  this 


VI  CONTENTS. 

•lecree  was  twisted — The  sacrameuts — Their  necessity — Inaccuracies 
and  sophisms — Intention  necessary — Occasions  or  causes  of  grace — 
Warm  disputes — What  does  the  Koman  Church  really  teach? — The 
intention  of  the  priest — Objections — What  is  to  be  done? — Baptism 
— Baptism  of  heretics — H0I3'  Chrism — Confirmation — Historical  view 
— Anathemas — Whose  province  it  is  to  confirm — Receiving  the  holy 
Chrism  —  Gratuitously  —  Historical  view- — Sad  realities  —  Twenty- 
ecven  anathemas — Water  of  baptism — Human  arrangements  —  Plu- 
ralities—  Historical  view — Unions  and  commendams  —  The  pope, 
always  the  pope  —  The  eleven  articles  of  the  Spanish  prelates  — 
Reference  to  the  pope — Replies — Scdva  seiiiper — Results  —  Roman 
immutability 150 

CHAPTER   V. 

(1547.) 
SESSION    VIII,       TRAXSLATIOX    OF   THE   COUNCIL   TO    BOLOGNA. 

Projects  of  translation — The  plague — Great  hurry — Decree  of  transla- 
tion— Eighth  Session — Minority — Resistance — To  obey  in  order  to 
be  obeyed 181 


BOOK   III. 

FROM  THE  TRANSLATION  OF  THE  COUNCIL  TO  BOLOGNA 
(1547)  TO  THE  SECOND  SUSPENSION  AT  TRENT  (1552.) 

CHAPTER   I. 

(1547-1549.) 

KESSIONS  IX.    AND   X.       THE    COUNCIL    AT    BOLOGNA   AND   THE    RLTMP    AT    TUENT. 
PROROGATIONS   AND    POLITICAL    COMPLICATIONS.       THE    INTERIM. 

Two  councils  instead  of  one — The  pope  says  nothing — Ninth  and  Tenth 
Sessions — All  is  brought  to  a  halt — Victories  of  Charles  V. — Paul  IH. 
allies  himself  with  France — Old  dotard — Protestation — What  Rome 
has  read  at  all  times  in  the  hearts  of  her  friends  —  Fresh  protests  — 
New  mask — Mutual  affronts — Thunder  and  finesse — Fourteen  months 
already  lost — ^The  pope's  death  universally  expected  and  desired — 
The  Interim — Criticisms — Resistances — Conferences  resumed — Nun- 
cios sent  into  Germany — Their  powers — Checks  and  affronts      .  187 

CHAPTER   11. 

(1549-1551.) 

--.ESSIONS    XL    AND    Xtl.       DEATH    OF   PAUL    III.       COUNCIL   RECONVENED    BY    JU- 
LIUS   III.       QUARREL    OF    THE    POPE    WITH    HENRY    II. 

T>oath  of  Paul  HL — Glance  at  his  life — The  conclaves — Historical  Re- 
view— Tedious  delays — Sad  heroism — Factions — Combinations — Ju- 
lius HL — All  difficulties  return — They  seem  to  grow  easy — Fresh 
ones  appear  —  The  pope  eludes  them  —  Second  convocation  of  the 
council — The  bull  is  keenly  criticised — How  interpreted  by  Charles 
V. — The  council  opened  anew  with  fifteen  bishops — Eleventh  Ses- 
BiCN — Was  it  still-bom — Political  occurrences — Rupture  with  France 


CONTENTS.  Vn 

— Gallicaii  iticonsistenoies — How  retleemed  by  Henry  1 1. — Mew  ciuisos 
of  distrust — Will  the  Protestants  come — John  Huss — Twelfth  Session 
— Adjournments — Amyot — Parliamentary  audacities    ....  203 

CHAPTER    III. 

(lo5I.) 
SESSION    Xlir.       DKCREES    ON    THE    EUCII.\RIST.       TR.\NSUB6TANTIATI0N    AXU 

EPISCOPAL    JURISDICTION. 

The  communion  under  both  kinds — State  of  the  question  in  the  six- 
teenth century — Discussion — Authorities — Trent  and  Constance  — 
Drink  ye  all  of  it — Sophisms — True  motives — A  safe-conduct  granted 
— Transubstantiation — Production  and  adduction — Did  Luther  be- 
lieve in  transubstantiation?  —  Physical  objections  —  ^Miracle  xipon 
miracle — Axioms — Is  trans;ibstantiation  a  miracle  like  any  other — 
This  is  my  body — Scriptural  objections — Analysis  of  the  narrative — 
Historical  objections — The  Apostles  and  the  New  Testament — The 
Fathers — The  idea  advances  but  slowly — Admissions — The  Mass — 
The  priest — Indiscreet  questions — Theory  and  practice — Adoration 
of  the  host — Jesus  Christ  whole  and  entire — What  purpose  does 
transubstantiation  really  serve — Ignoble  questions — Dilemma — Su- 
perstitions—  Idolatr}" — Episcopal  jurisdiction  —  Origin — Objections 
— Historical  review — How  the  pope  became  its  centre — The  coun- 
cil avoids  going  back  to  principles — Concessions — Thirteenth  Ses- 
sion     216 

CHAPTER  IV. 

(1551.) 
SESSION   XIY.      PENANCE.      ABSOLUTION,       THE   CONFESSIONAL.      EXTREME   UNC- 
TION. 

Complaints  against  the  divines — Regulations  on  that  head — ^The  sacra- 
ment of  Penance — The  confession — Scriptural  objections — Falsifica- 

^  tions  and  sophisms — Let  every  man  examine  himself — To  loose  is  the 
most  miraculous  and  the  most  divine  of  powers — The  more  it  is  al- 
leged to  be  necessary,  the  more  is  it  objectionable — Have  the  Prot- 
estants renounced  what  is  reasonable  and  good  in  confession — What 
the  Church  ordains  at  present  is  not  what  was  recommended  in 
primitive  times  —  The  council  shuts  its  eyes  and  pursues  its  own 
course — Other  difficulties — In  what  manner  is  penance  a  sacrament 
— What  proves  too  much  proves  nothing — Was  the  right  to  bind  and 
loose  given  to  the  priests  alone — Reserved  cases — A  conclusion  drawn 
in  passing — What  there  is  most  false  and  most  dangerous  in  confes- 
sion— Good  results,  the  value  of  whicli,  however,  must  not  be  exag- 
gerated— Peoples — Kings — Phrases  and  facts — Absolution — Absolute 
or  conditional  —  Logically  it  can  only  be  absolute — Questions  ad- 
dressed to  a  good  woman — Deplorable  results,  to  which  ever3thing 
concurs — Inconveniences  in  detail — The  Compendium — Admissions — 
Conclusion — Extreme  unction — One  Apostle  only  speaks  of  it — Scrip- 
tural discussion — Contradiction — Difficulties  arising  out  of  the  only 
passage  that  can  be  adduced  in  favour  of  this  sacrament — Elders  and 
priests — Formula  in  common  use — Reiteration — Extreme  imction  of 
little  use,  and  often  dangerous — Fresh  discussions  on  episcopal  juris- 
diction— Numerous  abuses — Insufficient  corrections — Dispensations 
more  rare  but  more  dear — Fourteknth  Session 244 


vm  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER   V. 

(1552.) 

SESSIONS    XV.     AND    XVI.       PROTESTANT     DEMANDS.        PAPAL     FEARS.       SUSPEN- 
SION   OF   THE    COUNCIL. 

The  affair  of  the  safe-conduct  taken  up  again — Reception  of  the  Prot- 
estant ambassadors  —  Fifteenth  Session  —  Proi'ogation — The  situa- 
tion again  becomes  menacing — Fears  and  precautions  of  the  pope — 
Arrival  of  some  Protestant  doctors — All  ceases  and  dies — War  bursts 
out  in  Germany — The  emperor  takes  to  flight — Suspension  for  two 
years — Involuntary  Gallicanism — Peace  of  Passau  and  abolition  of 
the  Interim — The  council  no  more  talked  of — Rome  thinks  she  has 
got  rid  of  it     .. 265 


BOOK   lY. 

FROM   THE   SUSPENSION   IN    1552  TO   THE   END   OF   THE 
TWENTY-SECOND  SESSION  IN  1562. 

CHAPTER   I. 

(1555-1561.) 

council   suspended.       POPES    MARCELLUS    XL,    PAUL    IV.,    AND    PIUS    IV.       PO- 
LITICAL complications. 

Ten  years'  interruption — Death  of  Julius  III. — Election  of  Marcellus  II. 
— ^He  reigns  only  one-and-twenty  days — Election  of  Paul  IV. — His 
character — His  incoherent  projects — Manoeuvres — The  States  of  the 
Church  invaded — Violent  acts  of  the  pope — His  deliverance — What 
he  meant  to  make  of  the  council — His  pretensions  with  respect  to 
kings  and  kingdoms — Ferdinand  resumes  the  offensive — The  Refor- 
mation spreads  in  all  directions — The  Inquisition — Servetus  and  Ro- 
man Catholic  historians — Pius  IV. — New  tactics — Delays  on  the  part 
of  Rome  and  impatience  of  France — Attempts  to  create  a  divei'sion — 
Geneva  and  its  history — David  before  Goliath — The  charity  of  St. 
Francis  de  Sales — Shows  and  appearances,  injinite  protraction  of  busi- 
ness and  disguising  of  real  intentions — Plan  of  a  European  confedera- 
tion against  the  Protestants — The  project  miscarries — A  new  council 
is  desired,  and  not  the  continuation  of  the  old — It  is  proposed  that 
one  should  be  held  in  France — The  pope  is  compelled  to  hasten  mat- 
ters— ^Third  convocation  of  the  council — Difficulties  eluded — Of  the 
unity  of  the  Council  of  Trent — The  bull  satisfies  no  one — The  six 
legates — Meeting  of  the  States  at  Orleans — Bold  demands — Catherine 
de  Medicio  and  the  Reformation 271 


CHAPTER   II. 

THE    CONFERENCE    OF    POI.SSY.       GALLICANISM    NOT    ROMANISM. 

Colloquy  of  Poissy — The  Chancellor  de  I'Hopital — Did  he  attack  the 
pope  alone — The  Protestants  have  the  ball  at  their  feet — Be/a  nnd 


CONTENTS.  IX 

the  Cardinal  de  Lorraine — Lainez — The  praises  he  receives — What 
Gallicanisni  is  in  the  ej^es  of  the  popes — Philip  II. — The  sympathies 
he  could  reckon  upon  in  France — Tlie  true  country  of  a  priest's  affec- 
tions— The  colloquy  concludes  that  the  cup  should  be  conceded  to 
the  laity — The  pope  consults  the  cardinals — Their  unanimous  refusal 
— ^The  matter  referred  to  the  council 290 


CHAPTER   III. 

(15G2.) 

SESSION  XVII. -XX.  DISPUTES  ABOUT  THE  AUTIIORITV  OF  THE  LEGATES  AND 
INDEX  EXPURGATORIUS.  TREACHEROUS  SAFE-CONDUCT.  DIVINE  RIGHT  OF 
BISHOPS.       EMPTY   SESSIONS. 

Bad  feeling  on  the  part  of  the  court  of  France  —  Re-opening  of  the 
council — ^Seventeenth  Session — Ambiguous  decree — False  reasoning 
— Precautions  taken — Proponentibus  Icgatis — Question  about  forbid- 
den books — Historical  review — Gelasius,  Leo  X.,  and  Paul  IV. — Em- 
barrassment and  puerilities — A  monstrous  libert}' — Absolute  enslave- 
ment— An  illusory  appeal  made  to  the  Protestants — Eighteenth  Ses- 
sion— The  safe-conduct  and  the  Inquisition — Spanish  Gallicanism — 
The  question  of  residence  taken  up  anew — It  becomes  complicated 
and  envenomed — Voting  upon  it — Reference  to  the  pope — Murmurs 
— Pius  IV.  dreads  pronouncing  upon  it — Momentary  calm — ^Several 
questions  of  detail  examined — Abuses  pointed  out — These  none  durst 
touch  without  the  consent  of  the  pope — His  evasive  reply  on  the 
question  of  the  Divine  Right — Nineteenth  Session — No  result — Pius 
IV.  conceives  a  dislike  for  the  council — Would  fain  dismiss  it  or  have 
it  entirely  under  his  hand  —  Jealousies  among  the  members  —  The 
pope's  pensionaries — Offers  of  money  to  the  king  of  France — Arrival 
of  the  French  anibassadoi*s  —  Satirical  harangue  —  Dissimulation — 
Another  Session  (Twentieth)  without  result 296 


CHAPTER   IV. 

(1562.) 

SESSION    XXI.        COMMUNION    IN     BOTH    KINDS.       THE    COL^'CIL    INTRACTABLE. 
MORE   PAPAL    INTRIGUES.       NO    RESULTS. 

Question  of  the  communion  in  both  kinds  again,  with  a  false  turn — 
Twenty  demands  made  by  the  emperor's  ambassador — All  becomes 
complicated  anew — the  pope  blames  the  legates — He  takes  up  arms 
— Imminent  ruptures — Digression — What  the  pope  was  in  the  eyes 
of  the  princes — Their  motives  for  maintaining  and  sparing  him — Pius 
IV.  has  again  the  upper  hand — Visconti's  mission — Is  the  suppression 
of  the  wine  in  the  supper  ordained  in  Scripture  or  only  commanded 
— Neither  the  one  nor  the  other — Analysis — Of  what  is  the  lay  per- 
son deprived — ^This  question  eluded — ^The  question  of  the  concession 
of  the  cup  resumed — The  council  seems  less  liberal  than  the  pope — 
Urgent  demands  of  the  ambassadors — Tergiversations  of  the  legates 
— Twenty-first  Session — Unexpected  debates — Several  points  left  un- 
decided— General  disappointment — ''They  do  only  what  they  have  a 
mind  to" — Neutrality  of  the  king  of  Spain — Advantage  which  Pius 
IV.  derives  from  it — ^The  supper  viewed  as  a  sacrifice      .     .     .812 


X  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER   V. 

(1562.) 
SESSION   XXII.       IS   THE   MASS   A    SACRIFICE?       DECREES  ENACTED  AMID   POLIT- 
ICAL   INTRIGUES. 

The  mass  —  Definitions  and  principles  —  A  first  and  a  wide  breach — 
Can  there  be  any  parity  between  the  mass  and  Jesus  Christ's  sac- 
rifice— J71  remembrance  of  me — Offered  07ice — What  we  ask  of  every 
sincere  Roman  Catholic — How  people  come  to  believe  everything — 
To  admit  that  the  mass  is  not  incontestably  in  the  Bible  amounts  to 
the  admission  that  it  is  not  there  at  all — Serious  difficult}^ — To  finish 
as  speedil}''  as  possible — Recriminations — The  pope's  new  precautions 
— "  It  is  thus  that  the  king  anl  the  world  are  deceived" — Splitting 
of  parties — The  small  matters — Three  opinions  on  the  question  of  the 
cup — Conditions  laid  down — Majority  against  the  concession — Pro- 
ject of  referring  it  to  the  Pope — Frictions  of  oil — Sundry  wise  regu- 
lations—  Absolute  prohibition  of  receiving  payment  for  masses  — 
Doctrinal  canons  —  Do  this  —  Long  debates — Masses  for  temporal 
wants — Masses  in  honor  of  the  saints — Private  masses — A  little  water 
in  the  wine — Worship  in  Latin — Scriptural  objections  —  Histoi'ical 
objections  —  True  motives  —  Twenty-second  Session  —  Minorities — 
Submission  and  silence 332 


BOOK  Y. 

EIGHT   MONTHS    OF   DISCUSSION   AND  INTRIGUE   WITH- 

OUT  A  SESSION. 

CHAPTER.   I. 

(1562.) 
discussions    on    ORDERS   AND    ORDINATION.       CONTINUED   PROROGATIONS. 

All  begins  anew ;  one  might  suppose  he  had  mistaken  the  page — Eight 
successive  prorogations — Opening  of  the  debates  on  the  sacrament  of 
orders — Imprudent  haste — Are  orders  a  sacrament? — Calvin's  opin- 
ion— In  what  sense  were  orders  instituted  by  Jesus  Christ? — Scrip- 
tural and  historical  discussion — Roman  system — Few  advantages 
and  many  inconveniences — The  seven  orders — No  scriptural  founda- 
tion—  Difiiculties  that  cannot  be  resolved  —  The  council  evades 
them — The  mass  the  basis  of  the  Roman  priesthood — Order  and 
the  orders — Grace  in  ordination — Endless  uncertainties  and  obscu- 
ties 355 

CHAPTER   II. 

(1562.) 
DISCUSSIONS   OF   THE   DIVINE   RIGHT   OF   THE   EPISCOPACY   AGAIN. 

The  hierarchy — Is  Episcopacy  to  be  found  in  the  New  Testament — In 
what  sense  it  is  legitimate — Contradictions  of  the  Roman  system — 
How  these  were  removed  at  Trent — The  old  question  of  the  divine 
I'ight  changes  its  aspect — It  becomes  simplified  on  the  one  hand,  and 
complicated  on  the  other — New  efforts  to  leave  the  pope  out  in  the 
discussion  of  it 365 


CONTENTS.  xi 

CHAPTER    III. 

(1502.) 
DISCISSION    OF   THE   SUPREMACY    OF    THE    POPE.       DANGEROUS    QUESTIONS. 

Tlio  popedom — T/fou  art  Peter — St.  Peter  in  tlic  Xcw  Testament — His-, 
tory — "Writings — Is  tradition  more  favourable — llow  the  Fathers  ex- 
plained Thou  art  Peter — Whatever  Peter  may  have  been,  is  the  pope 
his  successor — Chronological  difficulties — What  is  required  in  order 
to  the  testimony  of  the  Fathers  being  conclusive — Iren.fus — The  ajjoti- 
tolical  conatitutions  —  The  lloman  element — Internal  difficulties — 
How  to  link  the  chain — Independence  of  the  Apostles  and  of  all  the 
pastors  established  by  them — The  patriarchs — The  right  of  conquest 
no  right — Contrast  between  the  embarrassment  of  the  Church's  doc- 
tors, and  the  hardihood  of  the  popes — Gregory  XVI.  in  1832 — Some 
facts — Nice — Carthage — Gregory'  I.    .     .   " 3*70 

CHAPTER   IV. 

(1562.) 
THE   POPE    EVERYTHING   OR   NOTHING.       ULTRAMONTANISM   AND    GALLICANISM. 

Tlie  pope  is  necessarily  all,  or  nothing — Pangs  of  the  Roman  part}' — 
The  vote  is  taken  but  the  discussion  continues — It  comes  upon  the 
ground  of  the  authority  of  the  council — The  perilous  position  of  things 
becomes  more  and  more  evident — All  the  objections  reach  farther 
than  is  thought  desirable  by  those  even  who  make  them — The  cause 
is  committed  to  Lainez — His  speech — The  Church  is  essentially  sub- 
ject— It  was  to  Peter  alone  that  it  was  said,  "  Feed  my  sheep" — Ab- 
solute ultramontanism — A  Roman  Catholic  has  logically  no  reply  to 
make — Irritation  increases — Complaints  of  the  bishop  of  Paris — The 
French  of  that  time,  and  those  of  the  present  day 387 

CHAPTER    V. 

(1562.) 
ARRIVAL   OF   CARDINAL  LORRAINE.       NEW   POLITICAL    COMPLICATIONS. 

The  Cardinal  of  Lorraine — Precautions  taken — Urgency  of  the  Span- 
iards— Rumours  and  factions — New  draft  of  the  decree  on  residence 
— A  return  to  what  had  been  prepared  in  1551 — Point  of  issue — 
Arrival  of  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine — His  speech — What  were  at  bot- 
tom his  projects — New  causes  of  distrust— The  pope's  illness — The 
Cardinals — Historical  remarks — No  foundation  for  their  rights — The 
Cardinal  of  Lorraine  describes  the  calamities  of  France — Du  Ferrier's 
conclusions — Ours — In  what  sense  the  Church  has  a  horror  for  blood 
— New  fluctuations  on  the  Cardinal's  part — A  bad  Frenchman,  a  bad 
Spaniard — Fabian  delays — The  pope  sends  three  formulas  on  the  in- 
stitution of  bishops — They  say  too  little,  or  too  much — Agreement 
on  any  point  impossible — Battle  of  Dreux — Pius  IV.  considers  the 
success  gained  contemptible — Demands  of  the  court  of  France — ^The 
pope  pretends  to  dread  a  revolt — Offers  of  money — Nothing  is  ready 
— The  cardinal's  journey  to  the  emperor — Ferdinand's  complaints 
against  the  council  and  the  pope — The  court  of  France  sends  to  in- 
quire what  have  become  of  the  pi*omised  reforms 30G 


Xll  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER   VI. 

(1563.) 
DISCUSSIONS   ON    MARRIAGE,    DIVORCE,    AND    CELIBACY. 

Marriage — Is  it  a  sacrament — Scriptural  and  other  objections — In  giv- 
ing it  this  title,  has  it  been  really  rendered  more  sacred — The  Church's 
despotism — Objections  of  jurisconsults — Indissolubility  of  marriage 
— Except  it  be  for  adultery — Divorce — It  maybe  made  a  law,  but  not 
a  dogma — Weakness  of  the  arguments  in  favour  of  the  decree — Other 
difficulties — Civil  elements  of  marriage — Quibbles — If  marriage  be  a 
sacrament,  the  civil  power  has  nothing  to  do  with  it — The  march  of 
ideas — Side  by  side  with  so  much  strictness,  unheard  of  dissoluteness 
of  morals — Abuse  of  dispensations — Sophisms  of  the  ultramontanists. 
Can  a  Roman  Catholic  treat  them  with  contempt? — The  celibate — 
Can  we  examine  whether  it  be,  in  itself,  more  holy  than  marriage — 
Monks  and  the  monastic  life — Suicide — Convents  in  poetry — Con- 
vents in  reality — Forced  vows — Scruples  of  jurisconsults — Celibate 
of  priests — Right  and  abuses — The  celibate  and  the  Reformation — 
The  Jewish  law — The  Christian  law — St.  Peter — Ideal  and  realities 
— "What  the  clergy  are  where  it  prevails — Why  the  celibacy  of  the 
priests  is  persisted  in 417 

CHAPTER   VII. 

(1563.) 
POLITICS    AND    INTRIGUE    AGAIN.       THE   POPE,    THE   EMPEROR,    AND   THE   KING. 

Political  pre-occupations — Death  of  the  Duke  of  Guise — Cardinal  of 
Mantua's  letter  to  Paul  IV. — Letter  from  the  emperor — The  council 
has  remained  obnoxious  to  all  the  blows  then  levelled  at  it — The 
pope's  reply — Constantine  and  Theodosius — What  has  been  made 
of  them,  and  what  they  were — Philip  11.  and  his  prelates — Tumults 
at  Trent — Two  new  legates — Morone  at  Inspruck — Negotiations — 
Peace  in  France — The  pope's  ill  humour — At  Trent  weariness  and 
disgust • 439 


BOOK  VI. 

THE  COUNCIL  HURRIED  TO  A  CLOSE. 
CHAPTER   I. 

(1563.) 

DISPUTES    ON    PAPAL    AUTHORITY.       L.VIXEZ    BEARDS    THE    COUNCIL.       LORRAINE 

GOES    OVER   TO    THE   POPE. 

Glance  at  the  position  of  parties — The  as.sembly — ^The  Roman  Catholics 
— The  Protestants — the  Pope — Rome — The  emperor  begins  to  fail — 
The  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  goes  over  to  the  ultramontanists — What  is 
a  heretic  in  the  eyes  of  the  Church — Consistency  with  her  requires 
persecution — The  question  of  divine  right  resumed — The  cardinal 


CONTENTS.  xiii 

makes  a  second  step — The  council  is  led  away  into  the  field  of  the 
pope's  authority — The  opinion  of  Lainez  on  dispensations  and  the 
right  to  dispense — Almost  everybody  shocked  by  his  ideas  and  the 
tone  in  which  he  announced  them — He  excuses  himself — The  cardinal 
stops  the  protests — Dispute  betwixt  the  ambassadors  of  France  and 
Spain — State  of  the  question — A  bias  and  its  sequel — Violent  acts  of 
the  French  ambassador — Compromise — Other  disputes  of  the  same 
kind 450 


CHAPTER   11. 

(1563.) 

SESSION  XXiri.  DIVINE  RIGHT  OF  BISHOPS,  AND  THE  PAPAL  POWER,  BOTH 
LEFT  UNDEFINED,  AND  WHY?  DECREES  ON  ORDERS  AND  ON  REFORMA- 
TION. 

Why  such  an  indisposition  to  vote  on  the  question  of  the  divine  right 
— It  is  definitively  withdrawn — Consequences  of  the  vague  state  in 
which  it  has  been  left — Disagreement  among  the  doctors — Silence  of 
the  council  on  all  that  relates  to  the  popedom — Is  it  true  that  this 
silence  was  quite  voluntary  ? — Historical  sketch  of  the  discussions — 
Almost  as  many  questions  omitted  as  decided — An  attempt  made  to 
draw  up  a  table  of  the  functions  of  the  seven  orders — It  fails — The 
council  admits,  in  spite  of  itself,  the  legitimacy  of  the  suppressions 
made  by  the  Reformation — Theological  difficulties — The  Roman  sys- 
tem is  logical  and  clear  only  at  the  surface — The  Spaniards  desist — 
The  legates  are  delighted — Twenty-third  session — Decree  of  Refor- 
mation in  eighteen  chapters — Residence — Conditions  and  formalities 
of  ordination — Conditions  as  to  age — The  seminaries — Historical  re- 
view— The  seminaries  one  of  the  fruits  of  the  Reformation — Marriage 
— Ambiguous  decree 460 


CHAPTEE   III. 

(1563.) 

SESSION    XXIV.       CARDINAL    LORRAINE    VISITS    ROME.       DECREES    ON    MARRIAGE, 
DIVORCE,    AND    THE    REFORM    OF    THE    CLERGY. 

Forty  articles  presented  to  the  ambassadors — Why  so  many  cardinals 
Italians,  and  always  an  Italian  pope — The  princes  think  of  taking 
their  guarantees  against  the  bishops — Pius  IV.  urges  matters  to  a 
close — Intervention  of  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine — His  journey  to  Rome 
— Draft  of  decree  on  the  princes — Exorbitant  pretensions — Du  Fer- 
rier's  protest — The  council  more  than  ever  a  chaos — An  explanation 
of  the  proponentibtcs  consented  to — A  congregation  in  confusion — 
Twenty-fourth  session  held,  in  greater  confusion  still — Pallavicini's 
success — Objections  to  twelve  anathemas  of  the  decree  on  marriage 
— Contradictions,  incoherencies,  shifts,  and  quibbles — Why  was  the 
indissolubleness  of  marriage  not  formally  taught — Disciplinary  arti- 
ticles — Clandestine  marriages,  dispensations,  &c. — Reformatory  arti- 
cles— Elections,  provincial  and  diocesan  councils — A^isits,  preaching, 
censures,  draft  of  a  catechism,  penances,  salaries,  competitions,  ecclesi- 
astical procedure — Why,  after  so  many  decrees,  did  people  still  com- 
plain of  the  insufficiency  of  the  council  ? 47 1 


XIV  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER   IV. 

(1563.) 
PAPAL   ARROGANCE.       PURGATORY    AND    VIRGIN    WORSHIP. 

The  Queen  of  Navarre  is  summoned  to  Rome — Protest  of  the  Queen  of 
France — The  pope  seconds  the  views  of  Philip  11.  on  that  kingdom 
— It  is  decided  that  the  close  of  the  council  shall  take  place  before 
the  close  of  the  3-ear — The  discussions  hastened  by  the  bad  state  of 
the  pope's  health — Question  of  purgator}' — Scriptural  discussion — 
Involuntary  admission  in  the  Protestant  sense — Could  purgatoiy  fail 
to  be  expressly  mentioned  in  Scripture? — The  worship  of  the  Virgin 
— Mary  in  the  Gospels — In  the  Acts — In  the  Epistles — In  the  Apoca- 
lypse—Historical review — The  Virgin  in  the  writings  of  the  Fa- 
thers— Great  eulogies  but  no  trace  of  worship — Epiphanius,  Cyril, 
Proclus 487 

CHAPTER   V. 

(1563.) 
SAINT   WORSHIP.       HOW   SAINTS    ARE   MADE   AT   ROME. 

The  worship  of  the  saints — Silence  of  Scripture — What  all  prayer  ad- 
dressed to  a  dead  person  pre-supposes — Pagan  objection — Euther 
and  the  saints — What  would  be  lost,  in  general,  by  not  praying  to 
them — ^The  worship  of  the  saints  forbidden  by  implication  in  many 
passages  of  Scripture — ^There  is  but  one  sole  Mediator — Abuse  of  the 
worship  of  the  saints — Has  it  ever  remained  and  can  it  remain  with- 
in the  limits  traced  by  the  council — The  common  people  invoke  them 
as  present  everywhere  and  as  possessing  power  of  themselves — 
Proofs — Does  the  Church  combat  the  tendencies  of  the  common  peo- 
ple— What  would  be  thought  by  a  pagan  entering  Rome  again  after 
eighteen  hundred  years'  absence — Juliana  of  Liege  and  the  cut  in  the 
moon — A  mandement  of  the  Archbishop  of  Lyons — Falsehoods  and 
sophisms — ^Tlie  Virgin  queen  of  the  imiverse — Proofs — Citations — 
The  mob  of  saints — How  they  are  fabricated  at  Rome — Relics  and 
worship  of  relics 497 

CHAPTER   VI. 

(1563.) 
IMAGE   WORSHIP    AND    INDULGENCES. 

Worship  of  images — The  Second  Commandment — Fraud — Discussion — 
If  the  images  are  nothing  in  themselves,  why  are  some  more  vene- 
rated than  others — Is  the  worship  of  images  really  different  from 
what  it  was  among  the  pagans — The  worship  of  the  Virgin,  worship 
of  beaut}' — Questions  to  her  worshippers — Indulgences — Historical 
review — The  council  tries  to  purif}*^  the  practice,  but  leaves  all  the 
obscurities  of  the  theory  xmtouched — Discussion — Several  wherefores 
— Ridiculous  facilities — Although  salvation  were  to  be  bought,  the 
greatest  of  the  saints  would  not  have  wherewithal  to  pay  for  it — It 
is  a  matter,  therefore,  in  which  none  except  Jesus  Christ  can  lend  aid 
to  any  one 614 


CONTENTS.  XV 

CHAPTER    VII. 

(15C3-4.) 

SESSION     XXV,         ALL     DIFFICULTIES     ENDEIJ,     Tlii:    COUN'CIL     BREAKS     UP     AND 

TilK    POPE   TRIUMPHS. 

Heforniatory  decree  on  the  subject  of  the  religious  orders — Encronch- 
inents  on  the  civil  authority — Decree  of  general  lefonnation — "Wise 
measures — Digression  on  the  acceptance  of  the  council  in  France — The 
dogmatic  decrees  are  thought  little  worthy  of  a  couneil — The  j»ope 
dangerously  ill — More  and  more  haste  made — Tlireatening  difficulties 
— These  are  smoothed  down — ^The  pope's  confirmation  to  be  asked  for 
— All  the  old  decrees  to  be  read  in  public — The  decree  on  the  princes 
to  have  eveiything  removed  from  it  that  can  shock  tluni — Twenty- 
fifth  and  last  se.'^sion — [Jnlooked-for  article  in  favour  of  the  pope's 
.'luthority — Prorogation  until  next  day — The  decree  on  indulgences 
past — Resumption  of  the  session — Fasts,  festivals,  the  Index,  the  Cat- 
echism, questions  of  precedency,  <tc. — heading  of  the  old  decrees — 
One  further  difficulty  eluded — Final  voting — The  pope's  confirmation 
asked  for — Resistances — View  taken  of  the  confirmation  by  those  even 
who  advise  it — It  is  given — The  pope  reserves  to  himself  the  interpre- 
tation of  ihjn  decrees — Rome  can  as  little  trust  the  decrees  of  T^ent 
as  she  can  trust  the  Bible — Conclusion 524 


INTRODUCTION. 


The  doctrines  of  Rome  should  be  called  Tridentine  rather 
than  Catholic.  It  was  the  Council  of  Trent  which  gave  them 
their  form  and  pressure.  Dogmas  which  had  for  ages  floated 
in  vnicertainty  were  at  Trent  stereotyped  for  ever ;  the  theories 
of  the  schools  were  trimmed,  revised,  composed,  and  arranged, 
until  at  least  a  semblance  of  harmony  was  obtained,  and  they 
were  then  stamped  by  the  Council  with  infallibility. 

The  acknowledged  creed  of  Rome  is  contained  in  the  acts 
and  decrees  of  the  Council  of  Trent — ^there,  and  nowhere  else. 
The  Apostolic  and  Nicene  creeds  are  held  by  Romanists  in 
common  with  Protestants ;  but  there  is  no  formulary  contain- 
ing all  the  credenda  of  Romanism.  The  Catechisms  in  com- 
mon use  are  of  no  authority ;  indeed,  there  may  be  a  distinct 
one  in  each  diocese,  if  the  bishops  choose.  The  Catccliis'inus 
Co?icilii  Tridenti7ii  (Catechism  of  the  Council  of  Trent)  was 
prepared  by  order  of  the  Council  after  its  dissolution,  under  the 
authority  of  the  Pope.  It  was  decreed  at  the  twenty-fourth  ses- 
sion, that  this  Catechism  (to  be  prepared)  should  be  translated 
into  the  various  languages  of  Rurope,  and  "expounded  to  the 
people  by  all  pastors  ;"  so  that  the  book  has  a  qicasi  symbolical 
authority.  But  it  was  neither  published  nor  sanctioned  by  the 
Council,  nor  has  any  Pope  ever  declared  it  to  be  an  authorita- 
tive creed.  Indeed,  on  one  occasion,  in  a  controversy  touching 
the  relation  of  grace  to  freedom,  the  Jesuits  denied  the  author- 
ity of  the  Catechism  as  a  symbolical  book  ;  and  this  denial  has 
never  been  contradicted  by  Rome. 

This  state  of  things  gives  a  Roman  controversialist  great  ad- 
vantage. Q,uote  the  most  celebrated  Roman  doctors — an  an- 
gelical Aquinas,  or  a  sainted  Liguori — and  you  will  be  told  that 
their  writings  are  "  not  authoritative"     Cite  a  catechism,  a 


x\ni  INTRODUCTION. 

prayer-book,  a  breviary — your  mouth  is  closed  at  once  with  the 
declaration  that  the  Church  recognizes  none  of  these  as  giving 
her  creed.  Pursue  your  quest  as  far  as  you  may,  you  will  find 
no  book,  no  formulary,  no  summary  of  doctrine,  recognized  as 
binding  except  the  Canons  and  Decrees  of  Trent.  In  the  lan- 
guage of  the  greatest  Romanist  theologian  since  Bellarmine, 
"  Every  other  writing  that  may  bear  such  a  title,  is  only  a  de- 
duction from  this  formulary,  or  a  nearer  definition,  illustration, 
or  apphcation  of  its  contents,  or  is  in  part  only  regulated  by  it, 
or  in  any  case  obtains  a  value  only  by  agreement  with  it,  and 
hence  cannot,  in  point  of  dignity,  bear  a  comparison  with  the 
original  itself."^  The  canons  of  Trent  are  the  very  citadel  of 
Rome. 

Regarded  in  this  light,  the  acts  of  the  Council  obtain  a  new 
importance.  In  fact  this  Council  "  must  ever  be  regarded  as 
the  most  important,  if  not  of  all  councils,  yet  assuredly  of  all 
modern  ones.  Its  importance  lies  in  two  great  points.  In  the 
first,  the  doctrines  of  Rome,  after  many  fluctuations,  broke  for 
ever  with  the  Protestant  opinions.  Out  of  the  doctrine  of  justi- 
fication, as  then  set  forth,  arose  forthwith  the  whole  system  of 
dogmatic  theology,  such  as  it  is  professed  to  the  present  day  in 
the  Catholic  Church.  The  second  point  is,  the  re-establish- 
ment of  the  hierarchy  by  the  decrees  on  ordination,  and  the  acts 
of  reform  adopted  by  the  Council.  These  reforms  are,  to  this 
day,  of  the  greatest  moment.  By  them  the  faithful  were  anew 
I  and  still  are]  subjected  to  the  uncompromising  discipline  of  the 
Church,  and  in  urgent  cases,  to  the  sword  of  excommunica- 
tion  The  bishops  solemnly  bound  themselves  by  a  special 

confession  of  faith,  signed  and  sworn  to  by  them,  to  an  observ- 
ance of  the  decrees  of  Trent,  and  to  submission  to  the  Pojie'"^ 

But  the  Council  was  the  starting-point  of  a  new  era,  not 
merely  in  view  of  doctrine,  but  also  of  the  Papal  power.  One 
of  the  purposes  of  its  convocation — the  world  thought  it  the 
c/w'c/' purpose — was  to  set  limits  to  the  Papal  authority;  but  its 
great  result  was  directly  the  reverse.  Struggles  there  were, 
indeed,  in  the  Council  ;  but  the  Pope  emerged  from  them  all 
tenfold  stronger  than  before.  The  very  council  that  was  to 
bind  him  hand  and  foot,  put  into  his  hands  the  means  of  con- 

^  Mohler,  Symbolism,  Introil.  (J  1. 

*  Ranlcp,  History  of  the  Popes,  Book  iii.  vol.  i.  p    25G. 


INTRODUCTION.  XIX 

trolling  bishops,  priests,  and  laity,  with  a  force  and  pressure 
never  dreamed  of  before.  The  decrees  of  Trent  are  the  laws 
of  the  Church ;  hut  tlie  Pope  alone  can  interpret  tlujse  decrees  ; 
and  so  he  can  always  make  what  rules  he  pleases,  both  for  faith 
and  conduct.  The  Church  has  doubtless  gained  in  point  of 
energ}'  by  this  concentration  of  power  in  consequence  of  the 
decrees  of  Trent ;  but  it  has,  at  the  same  time,  lost  even  the 
show  of  Catholicity  which  it  possessed  before.  It  admitted,  at 
Trent,  "  that  its  dominion  was  circumscribed ;  it  gave  up  all 
claim  upon  the  Eastern  Church,  and  repudiated  the  Protestants 
with  countless  anathemas.  In  the  earlier  Catholicism  there 
was  an  element  of  Protestantism ;  this  was  now  for  ever  cast 
out.'i 

The  history  of  an  assembly  which  gave  rise  to  such  issues 
must  ever  be  matter  of  the  deepest  interest.  Who  were  the 
men  that  thus  made,  in  effect,  a  new  Christianity  ?  By  what 
authority  did  they  enact  laws  and  frame  dogmas  to  which  all 
men  must  yield,  or  be  accursed  ?  By  what  processes  were  their 
decisions  reached  ?  It  is  the  duty  of  the  historian  of  the  Coun- 
cil to  answer  these  questions.  Happily  the  sources  of  informa- 
tion are  not  wanting.  The  "  Reporter"  of  modern  times  was 
not,  indeed,  present  in  the  lofty  hall  wherein  were  gathered  so 
many  of  the  best  and  worst,  the  ablest  and  the  meanest,  of  the 
vast  body  of  ecclesiastics  who  clung  to  Rome  in  that  day  of  her 
severest  trial ;  but  many  pens,  official  and  unofficial,  were  at 
work,  taking  notes  for  posterity.  The  first  published  history  of 
the  Council  was  the  well-known  work  of  Father  Sarpi,  which 
was  originally  published  in  England  by  Spalatro,  under  the 
name  of  Storia  del  Concilio  Tridentino  di  Fietro  Soave 
Polaiio.  Though  Sarpi  never  acknowledged  the  work,  it  is 
well  known  that  he  wrote  it ;  the  manuscript  was  sent  from 
Italy  by  Sir  Henry  Wotton  to  James  I.,  and  the  first  edition 
was  printed  at  London  (1619,  foL).  It  has  been  repeatedly  re- 
printed in  Italian,  and  has  also  been  many  times  translated. ^ 

'  Ranke,  loc.  cit. 

'  The  best  edition  of  the  Italian  text  is  that  of  Geneva,  1629.  In 
Latin  we  have  Petri  Suavis  Polaniy  Hist.  Concilii  Tridcntini  (London, 
1620,  4to).  The  most  useful  edition  for  the  student  is  Courayer's  {His- 
toirc  de  Concile  de  Trente,  avec  des  notes  critiques,  &c.,  par  P.  F.  lb 
CouRAYER,  Amst.  1751,  3  vols.  4to).  There  is  an  English  version  by 
Sir  Nathaniel  Brent,  with  a  Life  of  Father  Paul  (Lond.  1676,  fol). 

B 


XX  INTRODUCTION. 

Father  Sarpi's  history,  full  of  wit,  talent,  and  sarcasm,  made 
a  strong  impression  throughout  Europe.  The  Roman  Court  set 
its  learned  men  at  once  to  refute  it.  A  vast  supply  of  material 
was  collected  by  the  Jesuit  Alciati,  but  he  died  in  1571,  before 
completing  his  work.  The  task  devolved  upon  another  Jesuit, 
Sforza  Pallavicino,  who  completed  it  with  great  ability.  The 
fu'st  edition  of  his  Istoria  del  Co?icilio  di  Trento  was  published 
at  Rome  (lGo6-57,  2  vols.  foL).  It  also  has  been  repeatedly 
reprinted  and  translated  into  various  languages. 

Of  these  two  writers,  whose  books  have  been  the  chief  sources 
of  information  for  all  who  have  since  treated  of  the  subject,  M. 
Bungener  speaks  in  the  following  terms  :  "  Sarpi  and  Palla- 
vicini  are  little  read,  and  we  cannot  well  expect  them  to  be 
read.  Differing  profoundly  in  their  qualities  and  in  their  views, 
they  are  but  too  much  alike  in  their  faults.  In  both  we  find 
diffuseness  and  dryness  :  no  plan,  no  philosophy ;  an  absence, 
in  fine,  of  all  that  is  now  looked  for  in  a  historian.  Sarpi's 
work  is  nothing  better  than  a  long  satire,  lifeless  and  insipid ; 
often,  too,  inaccurate  and  unfair  ;  Pallavicini's  is  but  a  long  and 
dull  apology,  more  accurate  in  its  details,  but  feeble  in  its  rea- 
sonings, and,  in  the  aggregate,  childish  and  false. "^ 

This  is  entirely  too  summary  a  judgment.  That  these  wri- 
ters are  not  adapted  to  popular  reading  is  true  enough  ;  that 
they  are  both  sometimes  inaccurate,  and  even  unfair,  is  also 
true ;  but  neither  of  them  deserves  the  sweeping  condemnation 
in  which  M.  Bungener  indulges.  An  elaborate  and  impartial 
criticism  of  the  two  writers  is  given  by  Ranke'(History  of  the 
Popes,  Appendix,  k  II.),  from  the  conclusion  of  which  we  take 
the  following  candid  and  comprehensive  statements  : 

"  It  has  been  asserted  that  the  truth  may  be  distinctly  gath- 
ered from  these  two  works  combined.  This  may  perhaps  be  the 
case  in  a  very  large  and  extended  sense  :  it  is  by  no  means  so 
in  particulars.  They  both  swerve  from  the  truth,  which  cer- 
tainly lies  in  the  midst  between  them ;  but  it  cannot  be  come 
at  by  conjecture  :  truth  is  j)ositive,  original,  and  is  not  to  be 
conceived  by  any  accommodation  of  partial  statements,  but  by 
a  direct  review  of  facts.  As  we  have  seen,  for  instance,  Sarpi 
says  that  a  treaty  had  been  concluded  at  Bologna  ;  Pallavicino 
denies  this  ;  no  conjecture  in  the  world  could  have  hit  upon  the 

*  Preface,  page  xli. 


INTRODUCTION.  xxi 

fact  that  the  treaty  was  not  made  by  word  of  mouth,  but  by 
writing,  a  fact  which  really  reconciles  the  discrepancy.  So 
again,  they  both  distort  Contarini's  instruction ;  there  is  no  har- 
monizing their  contradictions;  it  is  only  when  we  refer  to  the 
original  that  the  truth  strikes  us. 

"  Their  minds  were  of  the  most  opposite  cast.  Sarpi  is  keen, 
penetrating,  caustic  ;  his  arrangement  is  eminently  skilful ;  his 
style  pure  and  unaflected,  and  although  the  Crusca  will  not 
admit  him  into  the  list  of  classic  authors,  probably  on  account 
of  some  provincialisms  he  exhibits,  his  work  is  really  refreshing 
after  all  the  pompous  array  of  words  through  which  we  are 
forced  to  toil  in  other  authors.  His  style  coincides  with  his  sub- 
ject ;  in  point  of  graphic  power  he  is  certainly  second  among 
the  modern  historians- of  Italy  :  I  rank  him  immediately  after 
Machiavelli. 

"  Nor  is  Pallavicino  void  of  talent ;  he  draws  many  pointed 
and  forcible  parallels,  and  he  often  displays  no  little  skill  as  the 
pleader  for  a  party.  But  his  talent  is  somewhat  of  a  heavy 
and  cumbrous  cast ;  it  is  one  that  chiefly  delights  in  turning 
phrases  and  devising  subterfuges  ;  his  style  is  overloaded  with 
words.  Sarpi  is  clear  and  transparent  to  the  very  bottom  ;  Pal- 
lavicino is  not  wanting  in  continuous  flow,  but  he  is  muddy, 
dilluse,  and  shallow.  Both  are  heart-and-soul  partisans;  both 
lack  the  spirit  of  the  historian,  that  grasps  its  object  in  its  full 
truth,  and  sets  it  in  the  broad  light  of  day.  Sarpi  had  cer- 
tainly the  talent  requisite,  but  he  will  be  an  accuser,  and  no- 
thing more ;  Pallavicino  had  it  in  a  vastly  lower  degree,  but 
he  will  be,  by  all  means,  the  apologist  of  his  party. 

"  Neither  can  we  obtain  a  full  view  of  the  substance  of  the 
case  from  the  works  of  those  two  writers  combined.  It  is  a 
very  remarkable  circumstance,  that  Sarpi  contains  much  that 
Pallavicino  was  never  able  to  hunt  out,  many  as  were  the 
archives  thrown  open  to  him.  I  will  only  mention  a  memoir 
of  the  nuncio  Chieragato,  concerning  the  consultations  at  the 
court  of  Adrian  VI.,  which  is  very  important,  and  against  which 
Pallavicino  makes  objections  of  no  moment.  Pallavicino  also 
overlooks  many  things  from  a  sort  of  incapacity.  He  cannot 
discover  them  to  be  of  much  consequence,  and  so  he  neglects 
them.  On  the  other  hand,  Sarpi  lacked  a  multitude  of  docu- 
ments which  Pallavicino  possessed  ;  the  former  saw  but  a  small 


XXll  INTRODUCTION. 

part  of  the  correspondence  of  the  Roman  court  with  the  legates. 
His  errors  sprmg,  for  the  most  part,  from  the  want  of  original 
documents.  But,  in  many  cases,  they  both  are  ignorant  of  im- 
portant records.  A  httle  report  by  Cardinal  Morone,  who  exe- 
cuted the  decisive  embassy  to  Ferdinand  I.,  is  one  of  the  high- 
est moment  as  regards  the  history  of  the  whole  latter  part  of 
the  Council.     Neither  of  them  has  made  use  of  it." 

No  writer  of  recent  times  has  done  more  to  throw  light  upon 
the  history  of  the  Council,  and  to  furnish  materials  for  its  study, 
than  the  Rev.  Joseph  Mendham.  In  1834  he  published 
"■Memoirs  oftlie  Council  of  Trent,  priiicijxdly  derived  from 
raaniiscrift  and  2inpiibiished  recoj'ds"  kc.  (London,  8vo) ; 
and  in  1842,  his  ''Acta  Concilii  Tridentiiii^  a  G.  Cardinale 
Pcdeotti  descri]pta,  eclente  J.  MendhairC  (London,  thick  8vo). 
These  works  are  indispensable  to  the  student  who  desires  to  pur- 
sue the  subject  thoroughly.^ 

Although  so  much  had  been  done  in  the  way  of  elaborate 
and  extended  histories  of  the  Council  for  the  use  of  students  and 
theologians,  the  want  of  a  concise  yet  thorough  treatise,  adapted 
to  popular  reading,  was  for  a  long  time  seriously  felt.  One  of 
the  best  attempts  to  supply  this  want  was  made  by  the  Rev.  T. 
A.  Buckley,  in  his  ''  History  of  the  Council  of  Trent,  com- 
'piled  frmn  a  comimrison  of  various  ivriters,'^  he.  (London, 
1852,  12mo).  This  work  is  careful,  painstaking,  and  thorough. 
Mr.  Buckley  uses  his  authorities  with  discrimination,  and  com- 
piles from  them  an  accurate  and  useful  record  of  the  Council. 
He  does  not  seek  to  be  so  impartial  as  to  be  indifferent ;  not  de- 
siring "the  qualified  praise  sought  by  those  who  can  neither 
heartily  agree  nor  differ."  For  these  excellent  qualities  his 
book  deserves  great  praise.  As  a  manual  for  students  it  is  also 
worthy  of  high  commendation. 

Far  different,  both  in  its  aims  and  in  its  execution,  is  M.  Bun- 
gener's  work,  now  presented  to  the  reader.  The  writer  is 
well  known  as  the  author  of  several  brilliant  books,  illustrative 
of  the  history  of  Protestantism  in  France.  Two  of  these  have 
been  translated,  and  published  in  this  countiy  under  the  titles 

^  There  is  an  elaborate  German  history  of  the  Council :  VoUstandigc 
Geschichtc  dcs  Trident- Conciliums,  von  C.  A.  Salig  (Halle,  1741-45, 
3  vols.  4to).  A  Gallican  view  -will  be  found  in  Dupin,  Hist,  dii  Concile 
de  Trcnte,  &c.,  BruxcUes,  1721,  2  torn.  8vo. 


INTRODUCTION,  xxiii 

of  "The  Priest  and  the  Huguenot,"  and  "The  Preacher  and  the 
King  ;"  and  their  wide  popularity  sufficiently  attests  their  merit 
as  books  for  the  people.  M.  Bungener  has  great  dramatic  power ; 
his  personages  live  and  move  before  the  reader ;  he  distinguishes 
each  with  something  of  Homer's  individualizing  power.  This 
faculty,  combined  with  the  power  of  seizing  upon  salient  facts, 
and  of  grouping  them  into  pictures,  is  one  of  the  essential  qua- 
lities for  a  writer  of  history ;  and  it  is  precisely  here  that  most 
historians,  especially  of  the  Church,  signally  fail.  Skeletons  of 
history  we  have  in  abundance  ;  it  is  for  men  of  genius,  like  our 
author,  to  reproduce  the  life. 

But  the  present  work,  in  addition  to  the  merits  of  style  which 
characterize  M.  Bungener's  other  works,  has  peculiar  excel- 
lences of  its  own.  He  has  used  his  sources  carefully  and  con- 
scientiously ;  few  facts  of  any  importance  in  the  acts  and  doings 
of  Trent  are  omitted ;  few  are  stated  out  of  their  proper  and 
living  connexions ;  none,  I  think,  are  distorted  for  polemical 
purposes.  The  intrigues  and  the  chicanery  of  the  Popes  and 
their  legates,  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  the  Princes  and  their  am- 
bassadors, on  the  other,  are  laid  bare  in  a  masterly  manner ; 
the  reader  gets  behind  the  scenes,  and  sees  all  the  secret  ma- 
chinery by  which  the  puppet  bishops  were  pulled,  unwittingly, 
this  way  and  that ;  but  nothing  is  set  down  in  maUce.  M. 
Bungener  shows  himself  to  be  also,  to  a  great  extent,  master 
of  the  controversy  between  Rome  and  the  Church  of  God.  The 
reader  will  find  that  he  not  merely  states  the  doctrinal  decisions 
of  the  council  clearly,  but  that  he  shows  their  general  incon- 
sistency with  the  word  of  God,  and  even  with  the  stream  of 
pure  tradition.  In  this  respect  the  work  has  a  value  to  which 
no  other  history  of  the  Council  can  lay  claim. 

I  have  taken  the  hberty  to  divide  the  Books  into  chapters,  to 
alter  a  few  passages  in  the  translation,  and  to  add  an  occasional 
note  of  explanation.  Moreover,  as  the  author  furnishes  no  sum- 
mary of  the  doings  of  the  Council  at  its  several  sessions  in  con- 
nected form,  I  have  deemed  it  best,  in  view  of  the  wants  of  stu- 
dents and  readers  who  may  not  have  the  Acts  of  the  Council  at 
hand,  to  prefix  to  the  text  a  brief  account  of  the  Sessions  in 
chronological  order,  abridged  from  Landon's  "Manual  of  Coun- 
cils." 

John  M'Clintock 


SUMMARY  OF  THE  ACTS  i\JSrD  DECREES  OF 
THE  COUNCIL  OF  TRENT. 


The  Council  was  first  convoked  June  2,  1536,  by  Pope  Paul  III., 
to  be  held  at  Mantua,  May  23,  1537.  The  Duke  of  Mantua  object- 
ing, the  Pope  prorogued  the  meeting  to  November,  1537,  and  after- 
wards till  May,  1538,  at  Vicenza.  At  the  appointed  time  not  a  single 
bishop  appeared  at  A^'icenza;  and,  after  another  prorogation,  the  Pope 
issued  a  bull,  May  22,  1542,  convoking  the  council  for  November  1, 
1542,  at  Trent.  Further  difficulties  delayed  the  opening  until  the 
end  of  1545. 

The  council  was  opened,  and  the  first  session  held,  December 
Session  I.  13th,  when  there  were  present,  the  three  legates,  four 
Dec.  13,  1545.  archbishops,  and  twenty-two  bishops,  in  their  pontifical 
vestments.  Mass  was  said  by  the  Cardinal  del  Monte,  and  a  sermon 
preached  by  the  Bishop  of  Bitonte ;  after  which,  the  bull  given  No- 
vember 19th,  1544,  and  that  of  February,  1545,  were  read,  and  the 
Cardinal  del  Monte  explained  the  objects  which  were  proposed  in 
assembling  the  council.  The  next  session  was  then  appointed  to  be 
held  on  the  7th  of  January  following. 

On  the  18th  and  22d  of  December,  congregations  were  held,  in 
which  some  discussion  arose  about  the  care  and  order  to  be  observed 
by  prelates  in  their  life  and  conversation  during  the  council. 

On  the  5th  of  January  another  congress  was  held,  in  which  Car- 
j5^g  dinal  del  Monte  proposed  that  the  order  to  be  observed  in  con- 
ducting the  business  of  the  council  should  be  the  same  with  that 
at  the  last  council  of  Lateran,  where  the  examination  of  the  different 
matters  had  been  entrusted  to  different  bishops,  who  for  that  purpose 
had  been  divided  into  three  classes ;  and  when  the  decrees  relating 
to  any  matter  had  been  drawn  up,  they  were  submitted  to  the  con- 
sideration of  a  general  congregation ;  so  that  all  was  done  without 
any  disputing  and  discussion  in  the  sessions.  A  dispute  arose  in  this 
congregation  about  the  style  to  be  given  to  the  council  in  the  decrees. 
The  pope  had  decreed  that  they  should  run  in  this  form,  "The  Holy 
CEcumenical  and  General  Council  of  Trent,  the  Legates  of  the 
Apostolic  See  presiding,"  but  the  Gallican  bishops,  and  many  of  the 
Spaniards  and  Italians,  insisted  that  the  words  "representing  the 
universal  Church,"  should  be  added  ;  this,  however,  the  legates  re- 
fiised. 

In  the  second  session  forty-three  prelates  were  present.  A  bull 
Session  II.  was  read  prohibiting  the  proctors  of  absent  prelates  to  vote  ; 
Jan.  7         also  another,  exhorting  all  the  faithful  then  in  Trent  to  live 


1546.  ACTS   AND    DECREES    OF   THE    COUNCIL    OF   TRENT.         XXV 

in  the  fear  of  God.  The  learned  were  exhorted  to  give  their  atten- 
tion to  the  question,  how  the  rising  heresies  could  be  best  extin- 
guished. The  question  about  tlie  style  of  the  council  was  again 
raised. 

In  the  following  congregation.  Jan.  1.3,  llic  same  question  was 
again  debated.  Nothing  was  settled  in  this  matter,  and  they  then 
l)roceedcd  to  deliberate  upon  which  of  the  three  subjects  proposed  to 
be  iliseusscd  in  the  council  (viz.  the  extirpation  of  heresy,  the  refor- 
mation of  discipline,  and  the  restoration  of  peace),  sliould  be  first 
handled. 

In  the  next  congregation  the  deliberations  on  the  subject  to  be  first 
proposed  in  the  council  were  resumed.  Some  wished  that  the  ques- 
tion of  reform  should  be  first  opened;  others,  on  the  contrary,  main- 
tained that  questions  relating  to  the  faith  demanded  immediate  notice. 
A  third  party  asserted  that  the  two  questions  of  doctrine  and  refor- 
mation must  be  treated  of  together :  this  latter  opinion  ultimately 
prevailed  ;  but  at  the  moment  the  sense  of  the  assembly  was  so 
divided  that  no  decision  was  arrived  at. 

It  was  then  resolved  that  congregations  should  in  future  be  held 
twice  a  week. 

In  the  congregation  held  January  22d,  the  party  in  favour  of  en- 
tering at  once  upon  the  subject  of  reform  was  much  increased,  but 
the  three  legates  continued  their  opposition  to  the  scheme.  Subse- 
quently, however,  they  proposed  that  the  council  should  always  take 
into  consideration  together  one  subject  relating  to  the  faith,  and  one 
relating  to  reform,  bearing  one  upon  the  other. 

On  the  24th  a  curious  dispute  arosii  about  the  proper  seal  for  the 
use  of  the  council. 

In  the  third  session  nothing  was  done  except  to  recite  Session  in. 
the  creed,  word  for  word.  ^^^-  '^■ 

In  a  congress,  held  February  22d,  the  legates  proposed  that  the 
council  should  enter  upon  the  subject  of  the  Holy  Scriptures;  and 
four  doctrinal  articles  were  presented,  extracted  by  the  theologians 
from  the  writings  of  Luther  upon  the  subject  of  Holy  Scripture, 
which  they  affirmed  to  be  contrary  to  the  orthodox  faith. 

As  to  the  first  article,  the  congregation  came  to  the  decision  that 
the  Christian  faith  is  contained  partly  in  Holy  Scripture  and  partly 
in  the  traditions  of  the  Church.  Upon  the  second  article  much  dis- 
cussion arose.  All  agreed  in  receiving  all  the  books  read  in  the  * 
Roman  Church,  including  the  Apocryphal  books ;  but  there  were  ^ 
four  opinions  as  to  the  method  to  be  observed  in  drawing  up  the 
catalogue.  One  party  wished  to  divide  the  books  into  two  classes, 
one  containing  those  which  have  always  been  received  without  dis- 
pute, the  other  containing  those  which  had  been  doubted.  The  second 
party  desired  a  threefold  division.  1.  Containing  the  undoubted 
books.  2.  Those  whicli  had  been  at  one  time  suspected,  but  since 
received.  3.  Those  which  had  never  been  recognized,  as  seven  of 
the  Apocryphal  books,  and  some  chapters  in  Daniel  and  Esther.  The 
third  party  wished  that  no  distinction  should  be  made  :  and  the  fourth 
that  all  the  books  contained  in  the  Latin  Vulgate  should  be  declared 
to  be  canonical  and  inspired. 


^ 


XXVi  SUMMARY   OF   THE    ACTS   AND  1546. 

The  discussion  was  resumed  on  the  8th  of  March,  but  not  decided. 
In  the  following  congregation  it  was  decided  that  the  catalogue  of 
the  books  of  Holy  Scripture  should  be  drawn  up  without  any  of  the     * 
proposed  distinctions,  and  that  they  should  be  declared  to  be  all  of  / 
equal  authority. 

In  the  next  session  between  sixty  and  seventy  prelates  attended. 
Session  IV.  Two  decrees  were  read.     1.  Upon  the  Canon  of  Scrip- 
Apni  6.        tuj-e^  which  declares  that  the  holy  council  receives  all  the 
books  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament,  as  well  as  all  the  traditions 
/     of  the   Church  respecting  faith  and  morals,  as  having   proceeded 
,  /     from  the  lips  of  Jesus  Christ  Himself,  or  as  having  been  dictated 
'^       by  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  preserved  in  the  Catholic  Church  by  a  con-    . 
tinued  succession,  and  that  it  looks  upon  both  the  written  and  un-  y 
written  Word  with  equal  respect.    After  this  the  decree  enumerates 
the  books  received  as  canonical  by  the  Church  of  Rome,  and  as  they 
are  found  in  the  Vulgate,  and  anathematizes  all  who  refuse  to  ac- 
knowledge them  as  such.     The  second  decree  declares  the  authen-     / 
ticity  of  the  Vulgate  ;    forbids  all  private  interpretation  of  it ;  and    - 
orders  that  no  copies  be  printed  or  circulated  without  authority,  under 
penalty  of  fine  and  anathema. 

After  this,  the  question  of  original  sin  came  under  consideration, 
and  nine  articles  taken  from  the  Lutheran  books  were  drawn  up  and 
offered  for  examination  ;  upon  which  some  discussion  took  place ; 
ultimately,  however,  a  decree  was  drawn  up  upon  the  subject,  divided 
into  five  canons. 

1.  Of  the  personal  sin  of  Adam. 

2.  Of  the  transmission  of  that  sin  to  his  posterity. 

3.  Of  its  remedy,  i.  e.  holy  baptism. 

4.  Of  infant  baptism. 

5.  Of  the  concupiscence  which  still  remains  in  those  who  have 
been  baptized. 

A  great  dispute  arose  between  the  Franciscans  and  Dominicans 
concerning  the  immaculate  conception  of  the  blessed  Virgin ;  the 
Franciscans  insisted  that  she  should  be  specially  declared  to  be  free 
from  the  taint  of  original  sin ;  the  Dominicans,  on  the  other  hand, 
maintained  that,  although  the  Church  had  tolerated  the  opinion  con- 
cerning the  immaculate  conception,  it  was  sufficiently  clear  that  the 
Virgin  was  not  exempt  from  the  common  infection  of  our  nature. 

A  decree  of  reformation,  in  two  chapters,  was  also  read. 

In  the  fifth  session  the  decree  concerning  original  sin  was  passed, 
Session  V.  containing  the  five  canons  mentioned  above,  enforced  by 
June  17  anathemas.  Afterwards  the  fathers  declared  that  it  was 
not  their  intention  to  include  the  Virgin  in  this  decree,  thus  leaving 
the  "  Immaculate  Conception"  an  open  question. 

In  a  congregation  held  June  18,  they  proceeded  to  consider  the 
questions  relating  to  grace  and  good  works.  Also  the  subject  of  resi- 
dence of  bishops  and  pastors  was  discussed ;  the  Cardinal  del  Monte 
and  some  of  the  fathers  attributed  the  heresies  and  disturbances  which 
had  arisen  to  the  non-residence  of  bishops,  whilst  many  of  the  bishops 
maintained  that  they  were  to  be  attributed  to  the  multitudes  of  friars 
and  other  privileged  persons,  whom  the  pope  permitted  to  wander 


y 


1547.  DECREES    OF   THE    COUNCIL    OF   TRENT.  XXVll 

about  and  preach  in  spite  of  the  bishops,  who,  in  consequence,  could 
do  no  good  even  if  tliey  were  in  residence. 

In  the  congregation  hcUl  June  30,  twenty-five  articles,  drawn  up 
from  the  Lutheran  writings  on  the  subject  of  justification,  were  pro- 
posed for  examination. 

In  a  congregation  held  August  20,  the  subject  of  justification  was 
again  warndy  discussed,  as  well  as  the  doctrine  of  Luther  concern- 
ing free-will  and  predestination. 

Upon  this  latter  subject  nothing  worthy  of  censure  was  found  in 
the  writings  of  Luther  or  in  the  Confession  of  Aug.sburg ;  but  eight 
articles  were  drawn  up  for  examination  from  the  writings  of  the 
Zuinglians.    Upon  some  of  these  there  was  much  difference  of  opinion. 

By  the  advice  of  the  bishop  of  Sinagaglia,  the  canons  drawn  up 
embodying  the  decrees  of  the  council  were  divided  into  two  sets:  one 
set,  which  they  called  the  decrees  of  doctrine,  contained  the  Catho- 
lic faith  upon  the  subjects  decided  ;  the  others,  called  canoyis,  stated, 
condemned,  and  anathematized  the  doctrines  contrary  to  that  faith. 

Afterwards  they  returned  to  the  consideration  of  the  reform  of  the 
Church,  and  to  the  question  about  episcopal  residence.  Most  of  the 
theologians  present,  especially  the  IJominicans,  maintained  that  resi- 
dence was  a  matter  not  merely  canonically  binding,  but  of  Divine 
injunction.  The  Spaniards  held  the  same  opinion.  The  legates, 
seeing  that  the  discussion  tended  to  bring  the  papal  authority  and 
power  into  question,  endeavoured  to  put  a  stop  to  it. 

In  the  sixth  session  the  decree  concerning  Justification  was  read  : 
it   contained  sixteen   chapters  and  thirty-three   canons  Session  vi. 
against  heretics.  •^*"'  ^^'  ^^^~- 

The  decree  explains  the  nature  and  the  effects  of  justification,  say-  y 
ing  that  it  docs  not  consist  merely  in  the  remission  of  sin,  but  also  in 
sanctification  and  inward  renewal.  That  the  Jinal  cause  of  justifica- 
tion is  the  glory  of  God  and  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  eternal  life;  the  effi- 
cient cause  is  God  Himself,  who,  of  his  mercy,  freely  w^asheth  and 
sanctifieth  by  the  seal  and  unction  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  who  is  the 
pledge  of  our  inheritance ;  the  meritorious  cause  is  our  Lord  Jesus 
(xhrist,  his  beloved  and  only  Son ;  the  instrumental  cause  is  the 
sacrament  of  baptism,  without  which  no  one  can  be  justified  ;  and, 
finally,  the  formal  cause  is  the  righteousness  of  God  given  to  each, 
not  that  rigliteousness  by  which  He  is  righteous  in  Himself,  but  that 
by  which  He  makes  us  righteous.  But  no  man  may  dare,  under  pain 
of  anathema,  to  utter  such  a  rash  notion,  as  that  it  is  impossible  for  a 
man  even  after  justification  to  keep  God's  commandments. 

The  decree  further  teaches  upon  this  subject,  that  no  man  may  y 
presume  upon  the  mysterious  subject  of  predestination,  so  as  to  as- 
sure himself  of  being  amongst  the  number  of  the  elect  and  predesti- 
nated to  eternal  life  ;  as  if,  having  been  justified,  it  were  impossible 
to  commit  sin  agam,  or  at  least 'as  if,  falling  into  sin  afler  justifica- 
tion, he  must  of  necessity  be  raised  again.  It  also  teaches  the  same 
of  perseverance,  concerning  which  it  declares  that  he  who  perse- 
vereth  unto  the  end  shall  be  saved. 

Further,  that  they  who  by  sin  have  fallen  from  grace  given,  and 
justification,  may  be  justified  again  when  God  awakens  them  :  and 


XXVlll  SUMMARY   OF   THE   ACTS   AND  1547. 

that  this  is  done  by  means  of  the  sacrament  of  penance,  in  which, 
through  the  merits  of  Jesus  Christ,  they  may  recover  the  grace 
which  they  have  lost ;  but  it  also  implies  the  sacramental  confession 
of  his  sin,  at  least  in  will,  and  the  absolution  of  the  priest,  together 
with  such  satisfaction  as  he  can  make  by  means  of  fasting,  alms-giv- 
ing, prayer,  etc.  And  this  grace  of  justification  may  be  lost,  not  only 
through  the  sin  of  infidelity,  by  which  faith  itself  is  lost,  but  also  by 
every  kind  of  mortal  sin,  even  though  faith  be  not  lost. 

These  chapters  were  accompanied  by  thirty-three  canons,  which 
anathematize  those  who  hold  opinions  contrary  to  the  doctrine  con- 
tained in  the  chapters. 

Besides  this  decree,  another  was  published  in  this  session,  relating 
to  Reformation,  containing  five  chapters  upon  the  subject  of  resi- 
dence. 

Before  the  seventh  session,  a  congregation  was  held,  in  which  it 
was  agreed  to  treat  in  the  next  place  of  the  sacraments ;  and  thirty- 
six  articles,  taken  from  the  Lutheran  books,  were  proposed  for  ex- 
amination :  after  which  thirty  canons  on  the  subject  were  drawn  up, 
viz.,  thirteen  on  the  sacraments  in  general,  fourteen  on  baptism,  and 
three  on  confirmation.  They  relate  to  their  number,  their  necessity, 
excellence,  the  manner  in  which  they  confer  grace,  which  they  de- 
clared to  be  ex  o-pere  operato,  i.  e.,  that  the  sacraments  confer  grace, 
upon  all  those  recipients  who  do  not,  by  mortal  sin,  offer  a  bar  to  its 
reception. 

After  this  the  question  of  reformation  was  discussed ;  amongst 
other  things  it  was  debated  whether  a  plurality  of  benefices  requiring 
residence  is  forbidden  by  the  divine  law. 

In  the  seventh  session  the  thirty  canons  relating  to  the  sacraments 
Session  VII.  Were  read,  together  with  the  accompanying  anathemas, 
March  3.  yiz.,  thirteen  on  the  sacraments  in  general,  fourteen  on 
baptism,  and  three  on  confirmation. 

1.  Anathematizes  those  who  maintain  that  the  seven  sacraments   \/ 
were  not  all  instituted  by  Jesus  Christ. 

3.  Anathematizes  those  who  maintain  that  any  one  sacrament  is  i/ 
of  more  worth  than  another. 

8.  Anathematizes  those  who  deny  that  the  sacraments  confer  grace 
ex  opera  operato. 

\).  Anathematizes  those  who  deny  that  baptism,  orders,  and  con- 
firmation, imprint  an  ineffaceable  character. 

10.  Anathematizes  those  who  maintain  that  all  Christians  may  v/ 
preach  God's  word,  and  administer  the  sacraments. 

12.  Anathematizes  those  who  maintain  that  the  sin  of  the  minis- 
ter invalidates  the  sacrament. 

13.  Anathematizes  those  who  maintain  that  the  minister  may 
change  the  prescribed  form. 

Amongst  the  fourteen  canons  on  baptism : 

3.  Anathematizes  those  who  maintain  that  the  Church  of  Rome 
does  not  teach  the  true  doctrine  on  the  subject  of  baptism. 

4.  Anathematizes  those  who  deny  the  validity  of  baptism  conferred 
by  heretics,  in  the  name  of  the  blessed  Trinity,  and  with  the  inten- 
tion to  do  what  the  Church  does. 


1519  DECREES   OF   THE    COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  xxix 

5.  Anathematizes  tliose  who  maintain  that  baptism  is  not  neces- 
sary to  salvation. 

10  Anathematizes  those  who  maintain  that  sin  after  baptism  is 
remitted  by  faith. 

11.  Anathematizes  those  who  maintain  that  apostates  from  the 
faitli  should  be  again  baptized. 

13.  Anathematizes  those  who  deny  that  baptized  infants  are  to  be 
reckoned  amongst  the  faithful. 

14.  Anathematizes  those  who  maintain  that  persons  baptized  in 
infancy  should,  when  they  come  of  age,  be  asked  whether  they  are 
willing  to  ratify  the  promise  made  in  their  name. 

Secondly,  the  decree  of  reformation,  containing  fifteen  chapters 
relative  to  the  election  of  bishops,  pluralities,  &c. 

In  a  congregation  which  followed,  the  question  of  transferring  the 
council  to  some  other  place  was  discussed,  a  report  having  been  got 
up  that  a  contagious  disease  had  broken  out  in  Trent. 

Accordingly,  in  the  eighth  session,  a  decree  was  read,  transferring 
the  council  to  Bologna,  which  was  approved  by  about  Session  viil. 
two-tliirds  of  the  assembly;  the  rest,  who  were  mostly  March  ii. 
subjects  of  the  emperor,  strongly  opposed  the  translation. 

In  the  first  session  held  at  Bologna,  the  legates  and  thirty-four 
bishops  were  present;  a  decree  was  read  postponing  all  ^t  Bologna, 
business  to  the  next  session,  to  be  holden  on  the  2d  of  Session  IX. 
June  ensuing,  in  order  to  give  time  to  the  prelates  to  ar-  ■'^P'"'!^!. 
rive. 

On  the  2d  of  June,  however,  there  were  but  six  archbishops, 
thirty-six  bishops,  one  abbot,  and  two  generals  of  orders  Session  X. 
present;  the  rest  continuing  to  sit  at  Trent.  It  was  deemed  -^""^  -■ 
advisable  to  prorogue  the  session  to  the  fifteenth  of  September  ensu- 
ing ;  but  the  quarrel  between  the  pope  and  the  emperor  having  now 
assumed  a  more  serious  aspect,  the  council  remained  suspended  for 
four  years. 

In  1549,  Paul  III.  died,  and  the  Cardinal  del  Monte  having  been 
elected  in  his  place,  under  the  name  of  Julius  III.,  he  issued  a  j^^q 
bull,  dated  March  14,  1551,  directing  the  re-establishment  of 
the  council  of  Trent,  and  naming  as  his  legates,  Marcellus  Crescen- 
tio,  cardinal,  Sebastian  Pighino,  archbishop  of  Siponto,  and  Aloysius 
Lipomanes,  bishop  of  Verona. 

Accordingly,  the  next  session  was  held  at  Trent,  in  May,  1551, 
when  Cardinal  Crescentio  caused  a  decree  to  be  read,  to  ji^i  Trent, 
the  eflfect  that  the  council  was  re-opened,  and  that  the  Session  XI. 
next  session  should  be  held  on  the  1st  of  September  fol-  Mayi,i55i. 
lowing. 

In  the  next  session,  an  exhortation  was  read  in  the  name  of  the 
presidents  of  the  council,  in  which  the  power  and  author-  Session  Xil. 
ity  of  oecumenical  councils  were  extolled ;  then  followed  ^^V'--  ^• 
a  decree  declaring  that  the  subject  of  the  Eucharist  should  be  treated 
of  in  the  next  session.  James  Amyot,  ambassador  of  Henry  II.  of 
France,  presented  a  letter  from  his  master,  which,  after  some  oppo- 
sition was  read :  it  explained  why  no  French  bishop  had  been  per- 
mitted to  attend  the  council.     Afterwards.  Amvot,  on  the  part  of 


XXX  SUMMARY   OF   TilE   ACTS   AND  1551. 

Henry,  made  a  formal  protest  against  the  council  of  Trent,  in  which 
he  complained  of  the  conduct  of  Julius  HI. 
"^^        In  the  congregation  following,  the  question  of  the  holy  Eucharist 
was  treated  of,  and  ten  articles  selected  from  the  doctrine  of  Zuing- 
lius  and  Luther  were  proposed  for  examination. 

In  another  congregation  the  question  of  reform  was  discussed,  the 
subject  of  episcopal  jurisdiction  was  brought  forward,  and  a  regula- 
tion drawn  up  upon  appeals. 
r*         The  decree  concerning  the  Eucharist  was  read  on  the  13th  of  Sep- 
'       Session  XIII.  tember,  and  was  contained  in  eight  chapters.    The  coun- 
Oct.  11.  f,\\  declares,  in  chapter  1,  that  after  the  consecration  of 

the  bread  and  wine,  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  very  God,  and  very  Man, 
is  verily,  really,  and  substantially  contained  under  the  species  of  these  J 
sensible  objects. 

3.  That  each  kind  contains  the  same  as  they  both  together  do,  for 
thtit  Jesus  Christ  is  entire  under  the  species  of  bread,  and  under  the 
smallest  particle  of  that  species,  as  also  under  the  species  of  wine, 
and  under  the  smallest  portion  of  it.  i 

4.  That  in  the  consecration  of  the  bread  and  wine,  there  is  made  J 
a  conversion  and  change  of  the  whole  substance  of  the  bread  into  the 
substance  of  our  Lord's  bod}',  and  a  change  of  the  whole  substance 
of  the  wine  into  that  of  his  blood,  the  which  change  has  been  fitly 
and  properly  termed  "  transubstantiation." 

5.  That  the  worship  of  Latria  is  rightly  rendered  by  the  faithful  to 
the  holy  sacrament  of  the  altar. 

To  this  decree  there  were  added  eleven  canons,  anathematizing 

those  who  held  certain  heretical  doctrines  on  the  subject  of  the  holy 

Eucharist,  and  especially  those  contained  in  the  ten  articles  proposed 

Vi    for  examination  in  the  congregation  held  September  2. 

^"~-  Afterwards,  a  decree  of  reformation,  containing  eight  chapters, 

was  read  ;  the  subject  of  it  was  the  jurisdiction  of  bishops. 

In  a  congregation  held  after  this  session,  twelve  articles  on  the 
subjects  of  penance  and  extreme  unction  were  examined,  taken  from 
the  writings  of  Luther  and  his  disciples  in  a  subsequent  congrega- 
tion. The  decrees  and  canons  upon  the  subject  were  brought  for- 
ward, together  with  a  decree  in  filleen  chapters  on  reform. 
Session  XIV.  In  the  fourteenth  session  the  decree  upon  penance,  in 
Nov.  25.  nine  chapters,  was  read. 

It  states  1,  that  oar  Lord  chiefly  instituted  the  sacrament  of  pen- 
ance when  he  breathed  upon  his  disciples,  saying,  "  Receive  ye  the 
Holy  Ghost,"  &c. 

2.  That  in  this  sacrament  the  priest  exercises  the  function  of  judge. 

3.  That  the  form  of  the  sacrament,  in  which  its  force  and  virtue 
resides,  is  contained  in  the  words  of  the  absolution  pronounced  by 
the  priest, "Ego  te  absolve,"  &c.  ;  that  the  penitential  acts  are  con- 
trition, confession,  and  satisfaction,  which  are,  as  it  were,  the  matter 
of  the  sacrament. 

6.  As  to  the  minister  of  this  sacrament,  it  declares  that  the  power 
of  binding  and  loosing  is,  by  Christ's  appointment,  in  the  priest  only; 
that  this  power  consists  not  merely  in  declaring  the  remission  of  sins, 
but  in  the  judicial  act  by  which  they  are  remitted. 


1562.  DECREES    OF   THE    COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  XXXl 

9.  That  we  can  make  satisfaction  to  Cod  by  self-imposed  inflic- 
tions, and  by  those  which  the  priest  prescribes,  as  well  as  by  bear- 
ing patiently  and  with  a  penitential  spirit  the  temporal  sorrows  and 
afflictions  which  God  sends  to  us. 

In  conformity  with  tiiis  decree,  fifteen  canons  were  published,  con- 
demning those  who  maintained  the  opposite  doctrines. 

After  this,  the  decree  upon  the  subject  of  extreme  unction,  in  three 
chapters,  was  read  ;  and  the  council  then  agreed  upon  four  canons  on 
the  subject,  with  an  anathema. 

1.  Anathematizes  those  who  teach  that  extreme  unction  is  not  a 
true  sacrament  instituted  by  Jesus  Christ. 

2.  Anathematizes  those  who  teach  that  it  does  not  confer  grace, 
nor  remit  sin,  nor  comfort  the  sick. 

3.  Anathematizes  those  w^ho  teach  that  the  Roman  rite  maybe  set 
at  nought  without  sin. 

4.  Anathematizes  those  who  teach  that  the  -rrQeaftvTeQoi,  of  whom 
St.  James  speaks,  are  old  persons,  and  not  priests. 

After  this  the  question  of  reform  was  treated,  and  fourteen  chap- 
ters upon  the  subject  of  episcopal  jurisdiction  were  published. 

In  the  fifteenth  session  a  decree  was  read,  to  the  effect  that  the 
decrees  upon  the  subject  of  the  sacrifice  of  the  mass  and  Session  xv 
the  sacrament  of  orders,  which  were  to  have  been  read  •^^"-  2^-  ^^^2. 
in  this  session,  would  be  deferred  until  March  19,  under  the  pretence 
that  the  Protestants,  to  whom  a  new  safe-conduct  had  been  granted, 
might  be  able  to  attend. 

In  the  following  congregation  the  subject  of  marriage  was  treated 
of,  and  thirty-three  articles  thereon  were  submitted  for  examina- 
tion. 

The  disputes  which  arose  between  the  ambassadors  of  the  emperor 
and  the  legates  of  the  pope  produced  another  cessation  of  the  council. 
The  papal  party  were  not  sorry  when  the  report  of  a  war  between  the 
emperor  and  Maurice,  elector  of  Saxony,  caused  most  of  the  bishops 
to  leave  Trent. 

The  chief  part  of  the  prelates  having  then  departed,  the  pope's 
bull,  declaring  the  council  to  be  suspended,  was  read  in  Session  xvi 
the  sixteenth  session.  This  suspension  lasted  for  nearly  ^'^>'  ^^ 
ten  years  ;  but  on  the  29th  November,  1560,  a  bull  was  published  by 
Pius  IV.  (who  succeeded  to  the  papacy  upon  the  death  of  Julius  III. 
in  1555),  for  the  re-assembling  of  the  council  at  Trent  on  the  follow- 
ing Easter  Day  ;  but  from  various  causes  the  re-opening  of  the  coun- 
cil did  not  take  place  until  the  year  1562. 

On  the  18th  of  January  in  that  year  the  seventeenth  session  was 
held;  one  hundred  and  twelve  bishops  and  several  theo-  Session xvri. 
logians  being  present.  The  bull  of  convocation  and  a  "^^"-  ^^'  ^^^^ 
decree  for  the  continuation  of  the  council  were  read  ;  the  words 
*'^ proponcntibus  leffatis,^'  inserted  in  it,  passed  in  spite  of  the  opposi- 
tion of  four  Spanish  bishops,  who  represented  that  the  clause,  being 
a  novelty,  ought  not  to  be  admitted,  and  that  it  was,  moreover,  in- 
jurious to  the  authority  of  fficumenical  councils. 

In  a  congregation  held  January  27,  the  legates  proposed  the  ex- 
amination of  the  books  of  heretics  and  the  answers  to  them  composed 


XXXll  SUMMARY   OF   THE   ACTS   AND  1562. 

by  Catholic  authors,  and  requested  the  fathers  to  take  into  their  con- 
sideration the  construction  of  a  catalogue  of  prohibited  works. 

In  the  next  session  the  pope's  brief,  which  left  to  the  council 
Session  XVIII.  the  care  of  drawing  up  a 'list  of  prohibited  books,  was 
Feb.  26.  read. 

The  congregations  held  on  the  2d,  3d,  and  4th  of  March,  deliber- 
ated about  granting  a  safe-conduct  to  the  Protestants,  and  a  decree 
upon  the  subject  was  drawn  up. 

On  the  11th  of  March  a  general  congregation  was  held,  in  which 
twelve  articles  of  reform  were  proposed  for  examination,  which  gave 
rise  to  great  disputes,  and  were  discussed  in  subsequent  congregations. 

In  the  nineteenth  session  nothing  whatever  passed  requiring  notice, 
Session  XIX.  and  the  publication  of  the  decrees  was  postponed  to  the 
May  14.  following  session.      Immediately  after  this  session  the 

French  ambassadors  arrived. 

On  the  26th  May,  a  congregation  was  held  to  receive  the  Ambas- 
sador of  France.  The  Sieur  de  Pibrac,  in  the  name  of  the  king  his 
master,  in  a  long  discourse,  exhorted  the  prelates  to  labour  at  the 
work  of  reformation,  promising  that  the  king  would,  if  needful,  sup- 
port and  defend  them  in  the  enjoyment  of  their  liberty. 

In  th&  20th  session,  the  promoter  of  the  council  replied  to  the  dis- 
Session  XX.  course  delivered  by  Pibrac  in  the  last  congregation ;  after 
June  4.  which  a  decree  was  read,  proroguing  the  session  to  the 

16th  July. 

In  the  following  congregation  five  articles  upon  the  subject  of  the 
Holy  Eucharist  were  proposed  for  examination. 

The  question  about  the  obligation  of  residence  was  also  again 
mooted  :  but  the  Cardinal  of  Mantua  objected  to  its  discussion  as  en- 
tirely alien  from  the  subject  before  them,  promising,  at  the  same 
time,  that  it  should  be  discussed  at  a  fitting  season.  In  subsequent 
congregations  held  from  the  9th  to  the  23d  of  June,  the  subject  of 
the  five  articles  was  discussed. 

In  a  congregation  held  July  14th,  the  decree  in  four  chapters  on 
the  communion  was  examined. 

On  the  21st  session,  the  four  chapters  on  doctrine  were  read,  in 
Session  XXI.  which  the  council  declared,  that  neither  laymen  nor  ec- 
Juiy  16.  clesiastics  (not  consecrating)  are  bound  by  any  divine 

precept  to  receive  the  sacrament  of  the  eucharist  in  both  kinds ;  that 
the  sufficiency  of  communion  in  one  kind  cannot  be  doubted,  without 
injury  to  faith.  Four  canons  in  conformity  with  this  doctrine  were 
then  read : 

1.  Against  those  who  maintain  that  all  the  faithful  are  under  an 
obligation  to  receive  in  both  kinds. 

2.  Airainst  those  who  maintain  that  the  ('hurch  hath  not  sufficient 
grounds  for  refusing  the  cup  to  the  laity. 

3.  Against  those  who  deny  that  our  Lord  is  received  entire  under 
each  species. 

4.  Against  those  who  maintain  that  the  eucharist  is  necessary  to 
children  before  they  come  to  the  exercise  of  their  reason. 

Subsequently  nine  chapters  on  reform  were  read,  having  regard  to 
the  duties  of  bishops,  education  of  clerks,  &c. 


1562.  DECREES   OF   THE    COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  xxxiii 

A  few  days  after  this  session,  the  Italian  bishops  received  a  letter 
from  the  pope,  in  which  he  declared  that  he  was  far  from  wishing  to 
hinder  the  discussion  of  the  question  concerning  the  nature  of  the 
obligation  to  residence  ;  that  he  desired  the  council  to  enjoy  entire 
freedom,  and  that  every  one  should  speak  according  as  his  conscience 
directed  him ;  at  the  same  time,  however,  he  wrote  to  his  nuncio 
Visconti,  bidding  him  take  secure  measures  for  stifling  the  discus- 
sion, and  for  sending  it  to  the  holy  see  for  decision. 

In  the  congregations  held  after  the  twenty-first  session,  the  ques- 
tion was  concerning  the  sacrifice  of  the  mass.  All  the  theologians 
agreed,  unanimously,  that  the  mass  ought  to  be  regarded  as  a  true 
sacrifice  under  the  new  covenant,  in  which  Jesus  Christ  is  offered 
under  the  sacramental  species.  One  of  their  arguments  was  this, 
that  Jesus  Christ  was  priest  after  the  order  of  Melchisedec,  the  lat- 
ter offered  bread  and  wine,  and  that,  consequently,  the  priesthood  of 
Jesus  Christ  includes  a  sacrifice  of  bread  and  wine ! 

In  a  congregation  held  about  the  18th  of  August,  the  archbishop  of 
Prague  presented  a  letter  from  the  emperor,  in  which  he  made  ear- 
nest entreaties  that  the  cup  might  be  conceded  to  the  laity.  This 
delicate  subject  was  reserved  for  special  consideration  in  a  subsequent 
congregation. 

The  decree  on  the  subject  of  the  sacrifice  of  the  mass  being  now 
completed,  the  fathers  began  next  to  consider  the  subject  of  commu- 
nion in  both  kinds.  Three  opinions  principally  prevailed  amongst  the 
prelates ;  1,  was  to  refuse  the  cup  entirely ;  2,  to  grant  it  upon  cer- 
tain conditions  to  be  approved  of  by  the  council ;  and  3,  to  leave  the 
settlement  of  the  matter  to  the  pope. 

On  the  eve  of  the  twenty-second  session  a  decree  passed,  by 
which  it  was  left  to  the  pope  to  act  as  he  thought  best  in  the  matter, 
the  numbers  being  ninety-eight  for  the  decree,  and  thirty-eight  against 
it.  The  discussion  lasted  altogether  from  the  15th  of  August  to  the 
16th  of  September. 

In  the  twenty-second  session,  one  hundred  and  eighty  prelates, 
with  the  ambassadors  and  legates,  were  present.  The  Session  xxi  I. 
doctrinal  decree  touching  the  sacrifice  of  the  mass,  in  ^'^P^-  ^"• 
nine  chapters,  was  published.  Then  followed  a  decree  concerning 
what  should  be  observed  or  avoided  in  the  celebration  of  mass.  Priests 
were  forbidden  to  say  mass  out  of  the  prescribed  hours,  and  otherwise 
than  Church  form  prescribed.    • 

In  the  third  place  the  decree  of  reformation  was  read,  containing 
eleven  chapters,  on  bishoprics,  dispensations,  &c. 

With  respect  to  the  concession  of  the  cup  to  the  laity,  the  council 
declared,  by  another  decree,  that  it  judged  it  convenient  to  leave  the 
decision  to  the  pope,  who  would  act  in  the  matter  according  as  his 
wisdom  should  direct  him. 

In  a  congregation  certain  articles  relating  to  the  reformation  of 
morals  were  discussed,  and  the  theologians  were  instructed  to  exam- 
ine eight  articles  on  the  subject  of  the  sacrament  of  orders. 

This  occupied  many  congregations ;  in  one  of  which  a  large  num- 
ber of  the  prelates,  chiefly  Spaniards,  demanded  that  there  should  be 
added  to  the  7th  canon,  concerning  the  institution  of  bishops,  a  clause 


XXXIV  SUMMARY    OF   THE   ACTS   AND  1563. 

declaring  the  episcopate  to  be  of  Divine  right.  An  attempt  was 
made  to  stifle  the  discussion,  but  John  Fonseca,  a  Spanish  theologian, 
amongst  others,  entered  boldly  upon  the  subject,  declaring  that  it  was 
not,  and  could  not  be  forbidden  to  speak  upon  the  matter.  He  main- 
tained that  bishops  were  instituted  by  Jesus  Christ,  and  that  by 
Divine  right,  and  not  merely  by  a  right  conferred  by  the  pope.  The 
discussion  of  this  question  proved  highly  disagreeable  at  Rome,  and 
the  legates  received  instructions  on  no  account  to  permit  it  to  be 
brought  to  a  decision. 

However,  in  subsequent  congregations  the  dispute  was  renewed 
with  warmth:  in  the  congregation  of  the- 13th  October,  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Granada  insisted  upon  the  recognition  of  the  institution  of 
bishops,  and  their  superiority  to  priests.  Jure  Divino. 

The  same  view  was  taken  in  the  following  congregation  by  the 
Archbishop  of  Braga  and  the  Bishop  of  Segovia ;  and  no  less  than 
fifty-three  prelates,  out  of  one  hundred  and  thirty-one  present,  voted 
in  favour  of  the  recognition  of  the  Divine  institution  and  jurisdiction 
of  bishops.  According  to  Paolo,  the  number  amounted  to  fifty-nine. 
The  dispute  was,  however,  by  no  means  ended.  On  the  20th  the 
Jesuit  Lainez,  at  the  instigation  of  the  legates,  delivered  a  speech  in 
opposition  to  the  view  taken  by  the  Spanish  bishops,  denying  alto- 
gether that  the  institution  and  jurisdiction  of  bishops  were  of  Divine 
right. 

All  this  time  so  little  progress  had  been  made  with  the  canons  and 
decrees,  that  when  the  26th  of  November,  the  day  fixed  for  holding 
the  23d  session,  arrived,  it  was  found  necessary  to  prorogue  it. 
After  this,  in  the  following  congregations,  the  subject  of  the  Divine 
right  of  bishops  was  again  discussed,  when  the  French  bishops  de- 
clared in  favour  of  the  views  held  by  the  Spaniards. 

The  pope,  in  order  to  elude  the  difficulty  in  which  he  was  placed 
1563  ^y  ^^^^  demand  of  the  Spanish  and  French  bishops,  that  the 
"  Divine  right  of  bishops  should  be  inserted  in  the  7th  chapter, 
sent  a  form  for  the  approval  of  the  council,  in  which  it  was  declared 
that  "bishops  held  the. principal  place  in  the  Church,  but  in  depend- 
ence upon  the  pope."  This,  however,  did  not  meet  with  approval, 
and,  after  a  long  contest,  it  was  agreed  to  state  it  thus — that  "  they 
held  the  principal  place  in  the  Church  under  the  pope,''"'  instead  of  in 
dependence  upon  him. 

However,  a  still  warmer  contest  arose  upon  the  chapter  in  which 
it  was  said  that  the  pope  had  authority  to  feed  and  govern  the  Uni- 
versal Church.  This  the  Galilean  and  Spanish  bishops  would  by  no 
means  consent  to,  alleging  that  the  Church  is  the  first  tribunal  under 
Christ.  They  even  more  strenuously  denied  that  "  the  pope  pos- 
sessed all  the  authority  of  Jesus  Christ,"  notwithstanding  all  the  lim- 
itations and  explanations  which  were  added  to  it. 

On  the  5th  of  February  the  legates  proposed  for  consideration 
eight  articles  on  the  subject  of  marriage,  extracted  from  heretical 
books. 

The  question  was  afterwards  discussed,  whether  it  was  advisable, 
under  the  circumstances  of  the  times,  to  remove  the  restriction  laid 
upon  the  clergy  not  to  marry  ?  this  was  in  consequence  of  a  demand 


1563.  DECREES    OF   THE    COUNCIL   OF    TRENT.  XXXV 

to  that  effect  made  by  the  duke  of  Bavaria.  Strong  opposition  was 
made  to  this  demand,  and  many  blamed  the  legates  lor  permitting  the 
discussion,  and  maintained  that  if  this  licence  were  granted  the  whole 
ecclesiastical  hierarchy  would  fall  to  pieces,  and  the  pope  be  reduced  . 
to  the  simple  condition  of  bishop  of  Rome ;  since  the  clergy,  having  / 
their  affections  set  upon  their  families  and  country  ^wovXiX  be  inevit- 
ably detached  from  that  close  dependence  upon  the  holy  see,  in  which 
its  present  strength  mainly  consists. 

In  the  meantime,  the  Cardinal  of  Mantua  had  died,  and  the  pope 
despatched  two  new  legates  to  the  council.  Cardinal  Morone  and  Car- 
dinal Navagier.  The  French  continued  their  importunities  on  the 
subject  of  reformation,  and  were  as  constantly  put  off  upon  one  pre- 
text or  another,  by  the  legates,  and  thus  much  time  was  wasted. 

All  this  time  the  contests  about  the  institution  and  jurisdiction  of 
bishops,  and  the  Divine  obligation  of  residence,  continued  ;  and  at 
last,  in  order  to  accommodate  matters,  and  bring  things  to  an  end,  it 
was  resolved  to  omit  altogether  all  notice  of  the  institution  of  bishops, 
and  of  the  authority  of  the  pope,  and  to  erase  from  the  decree  con- 
cerning residence  whatever  was  obnoxious  to  either  party.  They 
then  fell  to  work  upon  the  decree  concerning  the  reformation  of 
abuses,  and  at  last,  on  the  15th  of  July,  the  twenty-third  Session  xxiii. 
session  was  held.  208  prelates,  besides  the  legates  and  •'"^>'  ^^■ 
other  ecclesiastics,  were  present.  The  decrees  and  canons  drawn  up 
during  the  past  congregation  were  brought  before  the  council. 

First,  The  decree  upon  the  sacrament  of  orders,  in  four  chapters, 
was  read. 

Then  were  published  eight  Canons  on  the  Sacrament  of  orders, 
which  anathematized, 

1.  Those  who  deny  a  visible  priesthood  in  the  Church. 

2.  Those  who  maintain  that  the  priesthood  is  the  only  order. 

3.  Those  who  deny  that  ordination  is  a  true  sacrament. 

4.  Those  who  deny  that  the  Holy  Spirit  is  conferred  by  ordina- 
tion. 

5.  Those  who  deny  that  the  unction  given  at  ordination  is  neces- 
sary. 

6.  Those  who  deny  that  there  is  a  hierarchy  composed  of  bishops, 
priests,  and  ministers,  in  the  Catholic  Church. 

7.  Those  who  deny  the  superiority  of  bishops  to  priests,  or  that 
they  alone  can  perform  certain  functions  which  priests  cannot,  and 
those  who  maintain  that  orders  conferred  without  the  consent  of  the 
people  are  void. 

8.  Those  who  deny  that  bishops  called  by  the  authority  of  the 
pope,  qui  auctoritate  Romani  ponti/icis  assuinuntur,  are  true  and 
lawful  bishops. 

After  this,  the  decree  of  reformation  was  read,  containing  eighteen 
chapters  on  the  residence  of  bishops,  and  on  other  ecclesiastical 
affairs. 

In  the  following  congregations  the  decrees  concerning  marriage 
were  discussed,  and  it  was  unanimously  agreed  that  the  law  of  celi-^ 
bacy  should  be  continued  binding  upon  the  clergy. 

Moreover,  twenty  articles  of  reformation,  which  the  legates  pro- 


xxxvi  SUMMARY   OF  THE   ACTS   AND  1563. 

posed,  were  examined  ;  and  during  the  discussion,  letters  were  re- 
ceived from  the  king  of  France,  in  which  he  declared  his  disappoint- 
ment at  the  meagre  measure  of  ecclesiastical  reform  proposed  in  these 
articles,  and  his  extreme  dissatisfaction  at  the  chapter  interfering  with 
the  rights  of  princes.  Shortly  after,  nine  of  the  French  bishops  re- 
turned home,  so  that  fourteen  only  remained.  On  the  22d  of  Sep- 
tember, a  congregation  was  held,  in  which  the  ambassador  Du  Fer- 
rier  spoke  so  warmly  of  the  utter  insufficiency  of  the  articles  of  re- 
form which  the  legates  had  proposed,  and  of  their  conduct  altogether, 
that  the  congregation  broke  up  suddenly  in  some  confusion. 

To  fill  up  the  time  intervening  before  the  twenty-fourth  session, 
the  subjects  of  indulgences,  purgatory,  and  the  worship  of  saints  and 
images,  was  introduced  for  discussion,  in  order  that  decrees  on  the 
subject  might  be  prepared  for  presentation  in  the  twenty-fifth  session. 
Session  XXIV.  On  the  11th  of  November,  the  24th  session  was  held,  in 
Nov.  11.  which  the  decree  of  doctrine,  and  the  canons  relating  to 

the  sacrament  of  marriage,  were  read.  There  are  twelve  canons, 
with  anathemas,  upon  the  subject. 

1.  Anathematizes  those  who  maintain  that  marriage  is  not  a  true 
sacrament. 

2.  Anathematizes  those  who  maintain  that  polygamy  is  permitted 
to  Christians. 

3.  Anathematizes  those  who  maintain  that  marriage  is  unlawful 
only  within  the  degrees  specified  in  Leviticus. 

4.  Anathematizes  those  who  deny  that  the  Church  has  power  to 
add  to  the  impediments  to  marriage. 

5.  Anathematizes  those  who  maintain  that  the  marriage  tie  is 
broken  by  heresy,  ill-conduct,  or  voluntary  absence  on  either  side. 

6.  Anathematizes  those  who  deny  that  a  marriage  contracted,  but 
not  consummated,  is  annulled  by  either  of  the  parties  taking  the  re- 
ligious vows. 

7.  Anathematizes  those  who  maintain  that  the  Church  errs  in 
h  )lding  that  the  marriage  tie  is  not  broken  by  adultery. 

8.  Anathematizes  those  who  maintain  that  the  Church  errs  in  sep- 
arating married  persons  for  a  time,  in  particular  cases. 

9.  Anathematizes  those  who  maintain  that  men  in  holy  orders,  or 
persons  who  have  taken  the  religious  vow,  may  marry. 

10.  Anathematizes  those  who  maintain  that  the  married  state  is 
preferable  to  that  of  virginity. 

11.  Anathematizes  those  who  maintain  that  it  is  superstitious  to 
forbid  marriages  at  certain  seasons. 

12.  Anathematizes  those  who  maintain  that  the  cognizance  of 
matrimonial  causes  does  not  belong  to  the  ecclesiastical  authorities. 

After  this,  a  decree  of  reformation  was  published,  relating  to  clan- 
destine marriages,  impediments  to  marriage,  &c.,  containing  ten 
chapters. 

After  this  a  decree,  containing  twenty-one  articles,  upon  the  reform 
of  the  clergy  was  read. 

Session  XXV.  Thc  last  scssion  was  held  on  the  3d  December,  1536; 
and  last.  Dec.  in  it  the  decrees  concerning  purgatory,  the  invocation  of 
3d  and  4th.        saints,  and  the  worship  of  images  and  relics  were  read. 


1564.  DECREES    OF   THE    COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.     ^  XXXVll 

1.  Of  purgatory.     Declares  that  tlic  Cliurch  lia.s  always  tauglit,  ^ 
and  still  teaches,  that  there  is  a  purgatory,  and  that  the  souls  which 
are  detained  there  are  assisted  by  the  suflrages  of  the  faithful  and  by 
the  sacrifice  of  the  mass. 

2.  Of  the  invocation  of  saints.  Orders  bishops  and  others  con- 
cerned in  the  teaching  of  the  people,  to  instruct  tlicm  concerning  the 
invocation  of  saints,  the  honour  due  to  their  relics,  and  the  lawful 
use  of  images,  according  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Church,  the  consent 

of  the  fathers,  and  the  decrees  of  the  councils ;  to  teach  them  that        . 
the  saints  ofier  up  prayers  for  men,  and  that  it  is  useful  to  invoke   j 
them,  and  to  have  recourse  to  their  prayers  and  help,  &c. 

On  the  subject  of  images,  the  council  teaches  that  those  of  our 
Lord,  the  Blessed  Virgin,  and  of  the  saints,  are  to  be  placed  in 
churches ;  that  they  ought  to  receive  due  veneration,  not  because 
they  have  any  divinity  or  virtue  in  them,  but  because  honour  is  thus 
reflected  npon  those  whom  they  represent. 

The  council  then  proceeds  to  anathematize  all  who  hold  or  teach 
any  contrary  doctrine. 

These  decrees  were  followed  by  one  of  reformation,  consisting  of 
twenty-two  chapters,  which  relate  to  the  regular  clergy. 

A  decree  was  also  published  upon  the  subject  of  indulgences,  to 
this  effect,  that  the  Church,  having  received  from  Jesus  Christ  the 
power  to  grant  indulgences,  and  having,  through  all  ages,  used  that 
power,  the  council  declares  that  their  use  shall  be  retained,  as  being  y^ 
very  salutary  to  Christian  persons,  and  approved  by  the  holy  coun- 
cils ;  it  then  anathematizes  all  who  maintain  that  indulgences  are  use- 
less, or  that  the  Church  has  no  power  to  grant  them. 

The  list  of  books  to  be  proscribed  was  referred  to  the  pope,  as  also 
were  the  catechism,  missal,  and  breviaries. 

Then  the  secretary,  standing  up  in  the  midst  of  the  assembly,  de- 
manded of  the  fathers  whether  they  were  of  opinion  that  the  council 
should  be  concluded,  and  that  the  legates  should  request  the  pope's 
confirmation  of  the  decrees,  &c.  The  answer  in  the  affirmative  was 
unanimous,  with  the  exception  of  three.  The  cardinal  president 
Morone,  then  dissolved  the  assembly  amidst  loud  acclamations. 

In  a  congregation  held  on  the  following  Sunday,  the  fathers  affixed 
their  signatures  to  the  number  of  two  hundred  and  fifty-five;  viz., 
four  legates,  two  cardinals,  three  patriarchs,  twenty-five  archbishops, 
one  hundred  and  sixty-eight  bishops,  thirty-nine  proctors,  seven  ab- 
bots, and  several  generals  of  orders. 

The  acts  of  the  council  were  confirmed  by  a  bull,  bearing  date 
Jan.  6,  1564.  The  Venetians  were  the  first  to  receive  the  Confirmed. 
Tridentine  decrees.  The  kings  of  France,  Spain,  Portu-  Jan.  6, 1564. 
gal,  and  Poland,  also  received  them  in  part,  and  they  were  published 
and  received  in  Flanders,  in  the  kingdom  of  Naples,  and  Sicily,  in 
part  of  Germany,  in  Hungary,  Austria,  Dalmatia,  and  some  part  of 
South  America. 


TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE. 


If  it  be  our  highest  civil  privilege  and  indefeasible  right  to 
have  law  deduced  from  the  purest  know^n  fountains  of  morality, 
and  enforced  by  the  strongest  knovi^n  sanctions,  the  British  con- 
stitution is  deservedly  most  dear  to  us.  For  its  morality  is  that 
of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  and  the  sanction  of  its  laws  is  that  of 
the  Divine  Authority  as  revealed  there. 

Viewed  in  this  merely  civU  light,  all  religious  bodies  which 
proclaim  the  Holy  Scriptures  to  be  the  sole  and  sufficient  rule 
of  faith  and  duty,  whether  they  be  endowed  by  the  State  or  not, 
are  eminently  conservative  of  our  civil  constitution.  For  the 
more  widely  spread,  and  the  more  powerfully  inculcated  the 
principles,  the  motives,  and  the  sanctions  of  the  Bible,  the  better 
our  warranty  for  security  without  despotism,  liberty  without 
hcentiousness,  mutual  toleration  without  infidelity  and  indif- 
ference. 

The  Church  of  E.ome  does  not  rest  on  that  foundation.  Its 
influence  can  not  be  deemed  conservative  of  our  civil  constitu- 
tion, yet  it  is  eagerly  bent  on  having  a  powerful  organization 
within  our  commonwealth.  Its  success  must  prove  the  reverse 
of  conservative  to  all  that  we  hold  most  dear — to  all  that  we 
can  most  legitimately  claim.  Its  morality  has  not  the  purity 
of  Holy  Scripture,  and  even  where  most  pure,  being  sanctioned, 
not  by  God  addressing  us  in  his  Word,  but  by  a  body  weakened 
by  a  thousand  associations  with  human  fallibility  and  corrup- 
tion, it  has  of  necessity  a  comparatively  feeble  purchase  on  the 
conscience  and  the  life.  Hence,  wherever  it  reigns,  no  security 
without  despotism,  no  liberty  without  licentiousness,  no  mutual 
toleration  without  infidelity  and  indifference. 

To  acquaint  ourselves,  then,  with  this  antagonistic  organiza- 
tion of  the  Roman  hierarchy,  its  doctrines,  its  laws,  its  adminis- 


TRANSLATOR'S    PREFACE.  XXXIX 

tration,  may  be  regarded  as  heiicefortli  an  indispensable  part  of 
a  sound  and  complete  education. 

And  if  important  in  a  mere  civil  point  of  view,  how  infmitely 
more  so  in  the  religious  and  theological  ? 

For  this  end  it  is  not  enough  that  we  know  something  of  the 
Decrees  and  Canons  of  the  last  solemn  Council  of  the  Roman 
Church,  and  of  the  Catechism  drawn  up  and  published  after 
its  close.  New  translations  of  both  have  lately  issued  from  the 
London  press, ^  and  testify  to  the  interest  widely  felt  in  the  sub- 
ject. It  is  still  more  necessary  that  the  history  of  that  assem- 
bly which,  after  having  both  added  to  and  taken  from  the  Word 
of  God,  characteristically  closed  its  sittings  ^^ith  reiterated 
anathemas  to  all  who  diflered  from  it,  should  be  known,  the 
vagueness  and  variableness  of  its  doctrines  exposed,  and  the  ten- 
deucy  of  its  errors  to  gather  force  with  time  demonstrated  by 
the  advance  made  in  some  of  the  worst  of  them  since. 

I  had  long  meditated  some  such  work,  when  that  of  M.  Bun- 
GENER  was  put  into  my  hands  by  a  valued  relative.  It  came 
highly  recommended,  and  at  once  recommended  itself  by  a  clear- 
ness, truthfulness,  and  vigour  in  the  narrative,  an  acuteness  and 
terseness  in  the  reasoning,  and  a  spirit  of  Christian  fidelity  and 
charity,  which  I  am  sure  my  countrymen  will  appreciate,  if  I 
have  at  all  succeeded  m  doing  it  justice  in  the  translation. 

It  was  no  small  encouragement,  that,  though  personally  un- 
acquainted with  the  author,  happening  to  learn  how  I  was  en- 
gaged, he  wrote  me  expressing  his  satisfaction,  and  offering  to 
send  me  his  last  notes  and  additions.  These  I  have  since  re- 
ceived and  incorporated,  so  that  the  work  in  English  is  more 
complete  in  this  respect  than  the  original  one  in  French. 

David  D.  Scott. 
St.  Axdre-v^-s,  May,  1852. 

*  The  Canons  and  Decrees  of  the  Council  of  Trent,  -with  a  Supple- 
ment, containing  the  condemnations  of  the  early  Reformers,  and  other 
matters  relating  to  the  Council.  Literally  translated  into  English,  by 
Theodore  Alois  Buckley,  B.  A.,  of  Christ  Church,  Oxford.  London, 
185L 

The  Catechism  of  the  Council  of  Trent.  Translated  into  English, 
with  Notes,  by  the  same  Author.     London,  1852. 


AUTHOR'S  PREFACE. 


The  Author  of  this  History  had  been  for  some  time  engaged 
on  it,  when  the  newspapers  informed  him  that  preparations 
were  in  progress  for  celebrating,  in  1845,  throughout  all  the 
Churches  of  Roman  Catholicity,  the  three  hundredth  anniver- 
sary of  the  opening  of  the  Council  of  Trent. 

This  news  not  a  little  surprised  him.  He  could  hardly  com- 
prehend how  an  appeal  could  thus  be  made  to  so  stormy  an 
epoch.  E,ome  is  surely  too  much  interested  in  having  the  De- 
crees of  Trent  regarded  as  oracles,  to  be  in  the  least  desirous  to 
have  their  history  too  narrowly  scrutinized.  Amid  the  chaos 
which  we  were  engaged  m  elucidating,  and  which  we  could  see 
at  a  glance  was  replete  with  matter  as  little  creditable  to  papal 
authority  as  it  was  to  that  of  Roman  Catholicism  in  general, 
the  Church  of  Rome,  thought  we,  must  have  strangely  reck- 
oned on  the  ignorance  of  some,  and  on  the  infatuation  of  others, 
when  she  could  present  herself  ultroneously  to  be  tried  by  such 
an  ordeal. 

There  was  some  risk,  in  fact,  of  the  trial  proving  a  rough  one. 
Some  popular  author  might  take  up  the  subject.  His  book, 
which  he  could  easily  render  amusing  without  making  it  untrue, 
might  make  an  immense  impression.  The  Council  of  Trent 
began  to  be  talked  of  in  the  social  circles  of  Europe,  and  this 
surely  was  not  what  had  been  thought  desirable  when  instruc- 
tions were  issued  for  having  it  recalled  to  men's  minds. 

The  anniversary  came.  Nobody  took  advantage  of  it  to  tell 
the  world  what  that  famous  assembly  was.  It  would  seem 
that  the  Church  of  Rome  had  herself  taken  it  to  heart,  and  had 
seriously  pondered  the  subject.     Whether  the  festival  was  coun- 


AUTHOR'S    PREFACE.  xli 

termanded,  we  do  not  know  ;  we  have  had  no  news  as  to  that. 
At  Rome,  in  particular,  not  a  word  was  said  about  it.  It  was 
the  day  on  which  the  Pope  had  an  interview  with  the  Emperor 
of  Russia. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  we  proceeded  with  our  task,  and  now 
commit  it  to  the  pubhc, 

"We  will  not  say  that  there  lias  been  any  generally  felt  want 
of  it.  To  say  this,  would  not  only  be,  as  it  always  is,  ambi- 
tious; it  would  be  untrue.  Who  now  dreams  of  the  Council 
of  Trent  ?  Truly,  the  public  has  something  else  to  do  than  to 
ransack  the  acts  of  a  council. 

But  although  the  want  of  some  such  work  may  not  be  gener- 
ally felt,  it  is  felt,  nevertheless,  by  some,  and  it  would  be  felt  by 
many,  w^ere  the  idea  but  suggested  to  them,  and  w^ere  they  but 
oflered  the  means  of  satisfying  it  without  too  much  trouble. 
Statesmen,  public  WTiters,  numbers  of  Roman  Catholics,  Pro- 
testants of  all  the  Churches  which  Roman  Catholicism  now  ren- 
ders restless  and  uneasy,  alike  in  religion,  politics,  and  j^norals, 
by  the  feverish  revival  to  which  it  calls  our  attention — all  at 
this  day  are  interested  in  knowing  what  took  place,  and  what 
was  done,  in  the  assembly  at  which  that  Roman  Catholicism 
was  definitively  constituted. 

Father  Paul  Sarpi  and  Pallavicini,  the  only  two  historians  of 
the  Council  down  to  this  day,  are  little  read,  and  we  can  not 
well  expect  them  to  be  read.  Differing  profoundly  in  their 
qualities  and  in  their  views,  they  are  but  too  much  alike  in  their 
faults.  In  both  we  find  dilTuseness  and  dryness ;  no  plan,  no 
philosophy  :  the  absence,  in  fine,  of  all  that  is  now  looked  for 
in  a  historian.  Sarpi's  work  is  nothing  better  than  a  long  satire, 
lifeless  and  insipid  ;  often,  too,  inaccurate  and  unfair.  Pallavici- 
ni's  is  but  a  long  and  dull  apology ;  more  accurate  in  its  details, 
but  feeble  in  its  reasonings,  and,  in  the  aggregate,  childish  and 
false.  Sarpi  has  been  put  on  the  Index  Expurgatorius  ;  Palla- 
vicini ought  to  be  there.  His  puerilities,  his  absurd  reasonings, 
often  say  more  than  the  attacks  of  the  opponent  whom  he  thinks 
he  is  refuting.  After  having  read  the  former,  who  blames  every 
thing,  you  dread  being  too  severe  ;  after  having  read  the  latter, 
who  approves  every  thing,  you  are  reassured.  The  weakness 
of  the  defence  clearly  enough  attests  the  weakness  of  the  cause. 
You  feel  that  severity  is  only  justice. 


xlii  AUTHOR'S  PREFACE. 

We  would  fain  hope  that  we  have  been  just.  The  pretensions 
of  the  Council  of  Trent,  and  of  its  foolhardy  heirs,  authorizes  our 
sifting  its  claims.  But  when  will  they  be  sifted  by  those  who 
have  been  fashioned  into  obedience  to  them  ?  A  colossus  with 
feet  of  clay — those  on  whom  it  treads  might  make  its  fragihty 
better  known  than  we  can  do,  and  might  labor  more  effectually 
toward  its  downfall. 


HISTORY  OF  THE  COUNCIL  OF  TRENT. 


BOOK  I. 

PRELBHNARIES    OF  THE    COUNCIL:    ITS    ORGANIZATION 

AND   AUTHORITY. 

CHAPTER    I. 

(1520-1545.) 

UNIVERSAL    CRY     FOR    A     COUNCIL  :     OPPOSITION    OF    THE     POPES. 
THE    COUNCIL    OF    TRENT    AT    LAST    SUMMONED. 

Introduction — First  wishes — Saint  Bernard  and  Luther — Awakening — 
Antipathies — Leo  X. — Illusion — Twenty-four  years  to  wait — Adrian 
VI. — His  theory  of  Indulgences — Projected  reforms — Projected  ex- 
terminations— The  Popedom  in  Germany — Admissions  made  by  the 
Pope — Tiie  hundred  grievances — Clement  VII.  and  the  Diet  of  Nu- 
remberg— Counter-diet — Charles  V.  and  Francis  I. — Battle  of  Pavia 
— Two  letters — The  Colonnas — The  Throne  and  the  Tiara — The  Con- 
stable de  Bourbon — The  Sack  of  Rome — Hypocrisy — Reconciliation. 
— Interview  at  Bologna — The  Augsburg  Confession — Christ  and  Be- 
lial— There  is  no  fear  of  the  heavens  falling — The  League  of  Smal- 
kalde — The  Turks — Geneva — Paul  IIL — Ten  years  yet — The  Sons 
of  the  Pope — Negotiations — Difficulties — Mantua — Vicenza — Trent 
— ^War  breaks  out  again — Hostilities  cease — The  Council  is  about  to 
open — Retrospect. 

The  history  of  a  council  is  not  confined  to  the  circumstances 
amid  which  it  was  called,  and  which  have  marited  its  proceed- 
ings. It  properly  commences  with  the  first  of  those  expressions 
of  the  general  feeling  which  led  to  its  being  assembled,  and  with 
the  wants  which  it  had  to  satisfy. 

But  these  wants  and  those  feelings  may  possibly  have  had 
their  nature  insensibly  modified  by  time.  If  there  are  ideas  in 
which  the  essence  remains  although  the  forms  vary,  there  are 
those  also  in  which  the  essence  changes  without  any  alteration 
having  taken  place  in  the  forms.  Liberty,  for  example,  has 
hardly  any  thing  now  in  common  with  wliat  was  once  under- 
stood by  the  word ;  and  when  our  modern  demagogues  speak  of 

A 


ti  HISTORY    OF   THE    COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  I. 

a  Leonidas.  or  of  a  William  Tell,  it  is  most  frequently  a  mere 
play  of  words. 

When  Luther  spoke  of  a  council  for  the  reformation  of  the 
faith,  was  he,  as  Bossuet^  alleges,  pursuing  quite  a  different  path 
from  St.  Bernard,  when,  four  centuries  earlier,  he  called  for  a 
reformation  in  discipline  ?  AYe  think  not.  "  ATho  Avill  give 
me,"  exclaimed  the  Abbot  of  Clairvaux,^  "  who  will  give  me 
the  satisfaction,  ere  I  die,  of  seeing  the  Church  in  the  condition 
she  was  in  in  her  early  days  I"  But  in  the  twelfth  centur\',  at 
an  epoch  essentially  practical,  and  with  a  man  who  had  above  all 
things  a  genius  lor  organization,  the  perfect  ideal  of  the  Church 
was  also,  above  all  things,  an  ideal  of  order,  of  practical  faith, 
and  of  purity  of  manners. 

It  is  thus  that  we  should  account  for  the  faith  being  apparent- 
ly left  out  of  consideration  in  that  appeal  to  antiquity.  It  re- 
mains to  be  seen  w^iether  serious  attempts  to  answer  that  appeal 
could  have  left  the  question  on  the  domain  where  people  thought 
they  had  placed  it. 

Attempts  there  were  ;  but  serioiis,.  atternpts,  or  at  least  seri- 
ously pursued,  there  were  none.  That  the  Councils  of  Basle 
and  Constance  had  jipt.  answered  the  desire  expressed  of  old  by 
St.  Bernard,  may  be  seen  from  the  fact,  that  the  nations  had 
not  ceased  to  call  for  a  reformation — a  council,  and  that  people 
spoke  generally  as  if  nothing  had  as  yet  been  done. 

This  being  the  case,  can  it  be  admitted  that  a  serious,  learned, 
and  impartial  council,  such,  in  fine,  as  the  Bishop  Durand  de 
Mende  lixed  the  basis  of  at  the  beginnino:  of  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury^ — that  such  a  council,  even  in  the  twelfth,  would  not  have 
been  led  off,  in  spite  of  itself,  into  the  domain  of  the  faith  ? 
And  had  it  really  entered  on  it  with  the  desire  of  seeing  the 
Church  again  "  such  as  she  Avas  in  her  first  days ;"  had  it,  in 
harmony  with  that  wish,  frankly  placed  Scripture  again  above 
all  traditions,  who  will  say  that  discipline  and  morals  alone 
would  have  appeared  altered  ?  We  are  now  about  to  have  a 
proof  to  the  contrary  almost  at  every  page. 

Nevertheless,  this  work,  which  so  many  councils  had  been 
imable  or  unwilling  to  undertake,  nations  and  doctors  had  been 
silently  accomplishing  without  being  aware  of  it.  The  instinct 
of  the  former,  and  the  logic  of  the  latter,  equally  revolted  against 
that  strange  abstraction,  of  a  church  infallible  in  its  doctrines 
yet   increasingly  fallible  in  its  manners  ;   people  had   believed 

^  Variations,  B.  I.  -  Bernard,  Epistle  to  Pope  Eugeniu3  III. 

^  Tractatus  de  modo  concilii  gcncralis  celehrandi.  Reprinted  at  Bruges 
in  1545,  and  dedicated  by  the  Jurisconsult  Probus  to  the  Fathers  of  the 
Council  of  Trent. 


Chap.  I   15-21.  LEO   X.  8 

that  they  were  only  {sighing  lor  a  disciplinary  relbrmation,  and, 
lo  I  a  single  shake  was  all  that  was  required  in  order  to  the  half 
of  Europe  arousing  itself  from  its  lethargy,  and  sighing  for  a 
reformation  of  the  faith. 

But,  down  to  this  time,  the  very  w^j-^l  fflU"^'^  '^^'^''  hateful  ta 
JLhe  Church  of  Rome.  In  vain  had  it  attempted  to  palm  off  a 
deception',  by  itseTTadorning  with  that  name  some  petty  assem- 
blies held  in  Italy  by  the  Popes.  Council,  in  the  language  of 
Europe,  no  longer  meant  any  thing  short  of  general,  universal 
council.  Rome  struggled  to  put  people  off  with  courts  of  an 
inferior  grade,  but  from  all  other  quarters  there  arose  the  cry  for 
the  supreme  court,  the  States-General  of  Christendom. 

Pallavicini  has  endeavoured  to  prove  that  the  popes  were  less 
afraid  of  it  than  people  said  ;  but  truth  wrests  from  him,  from 
time  to  time,  admissions  that  more  than  suffice  to  overturn  all 
the  rest.  "  Just  as  in  the  pupil  of  the  eye,  the  smallest  grain  of 
dust  causes  extreme  uneasiness,  so,  when  things  of  the  highest 
value  are  in  agitation,  the  remotest  dangers  give  occasion  to  the 
cruellest  alarms."^  Sarpi  himself  never  said  more  or  spoke  bet- 
ter. The  breath  of  public  opinion  had  set  in  motion  enough  of 
those  "  grains  of  dust"  so  menacing  to  the  eye  of  the  popedom. 
Could  it  proceed,  then,  and  place  itself  without  alarm  in  the 
midst  of  the  whirlwind  ;  Basle  and  Constance  .had  not  allowed 
it  to  entertain  any  doubt  as  to  the  immensity  of  the  danger  that 
threatened  it. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  when  the  question  had  undergone  the 
change  that  we  have  indicated,  the  Court  of  Rome  seemed  rec- 
onciled for  a  moment  to  the  idea  of  a  council.  On  the  field  of 
doctrine,  it  believed  itself  sure  of  victory.  So  iii  fact  it  was. 
iTor'arshigle  bishop  had  as  yet  deserted  it  ;  Leo  X.  would  have 
thought  it  a  fine  thing  to  reply  to  the  Saxon  monk,  by  the  im- 
posing voice  of  the  whole  Christian  episcopate.  This  illusion 
lasted  but  a  short  time  ;  and,  to  tell  the  truth,  few  had  shared 
it.  Leo  X.'s  advisers  were  frightened  at  his  confidence.  They 
were  right.  "Whatever  importance  dogmatic  questions  had  ac- 
quired, it  was  soon  easy  to  see  that  people  had  not  on  that  ac- 
count laid  aside  their  old  complaints  or  their  old  longings.  The 
seculai-  princes  of  Christendom  spoke  more  than  ever  ci  ^t^ctting 
*liLmits  to  llu  LiKToachments  of  the  clergy  ;  their  subjects  talked 
more  than  ever  of  their  unwillingness  tp^ieceive  in  future  auy 
buTmen  of  respectable  character  for  their  pastors  ;  and  bishops 
spoke,  too,  of  insisting  on  the  restoration  of  those  rights  of  wEicL 
Rome  had  gradually  deprived  them.  In  fine,  Luther  and  his 
friends,  after  having  called  so  warmly  for  a  couocUj^^had  not 

^  Pallav.,  Tntrod.  ch.  x. 


4  HISTORY    OF    THE    COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  I. 

been  slow  to  add  the  expression  of  their  desire,  that  it  should 
not  be  convoked  or  presided  over,  or  directed  by  the  Bishop  of 
Rome.  To  that  the  pope  could  only  reply  as  a  pope  might  be 
expected  to  do  :  he  caused  him  to  be  excommunicated.  "^"* 

Leo  X.  considered  himself  nevertheless  as  engaged,  if  not  to 
the  Lutherans,  at  least  to  the  princes  who  had  supported  their 
first  appeal.  In  1521,  and  even  before  that,  we  see  him  occu- 
pied about  the  selection  of  a  city  in  which  the  council  might  be 
conveniently  held .  But  towards  the  close  of  that  same  year  he 
died,  very  far  probably  from  suspecting  that  twenty-four  years 
would  elapse  before  matters  should  be  in  a  train  for  the  accom- 
plishment of  such  a  purpose. 

Adrian,  his  successor,  was  a  man  of  honest  intentions ;  he 
desired  a  reformation  of  abuses,  but  he  desired  to  see  it  efTected. 
by  the  pope  ;  as  for  reformation  in  matters  of  faith,  he  could  not 
conceive  how  any  one  could  have  so  much  as  the  idea  of  such  a 
thing.  Li  his  eyes,  it  was  all  one  to  deny  the  mass  and  to  deny 
that  the  sun  exists;  and  Luther,  he  thought,  was  less  a  heretic 
than  a  madman.  All  the  Roman  dogmas  had  for  a  long  time 
been  struck  at  by  the  axe  of  Wittemberg,  when  he  believed  that 
they  were  still  at  the  question  of  indulgences,  and  spoke  of  ar- 
ranging the  affair  by  giving  explanations  on  that  point.  With 
this  view  he  proposed  to  proclaim  to  all  Christendom,  as  pope,  a 
doctrine  which  he  had  taught  before  as  a  divine.  According  to 
him,'  the  effects  of  the  indulgence  purchased  or  acquired,  are 
not  absolute,  but  more  or  less  good,  more  or  less  complete,  ac- 
cording to  the  dispositions  of  the  penitent,  and  the  manner  in 
which  he  performs  the  work  to  which  the  indulgence  is  attached. 
A  bull  to  this  effect  was  said  to  be  ready  for  publication ;  but 
alarm  seized  all  the  pope's  circle,  and  not  without  reason,  for 
their  master  would  thereby  employ  his  own  hand  in  opening  the 
door  by  which  all  Luther's  ideas  had  been  successively  intro- 
duced into  Germany.  In  vain  would  the  indulgences  continue, 
according  to  the  bull,  to  be  powerful  means  of  salvation ;  for  it 
is  clear  that  if  their  virtue — it  matters  not  in  what  degree — de- 
pends on  the  dispositions  of  the  believer,  it  is  very  difficult  to 
avoid  the  conclusion,  either  that  the  indulgence,  received  Avith- 
out  piety,  is  null,  or  that  piety,  from  the  moment  that  it  is  true 
and  solid,  may  dispense  with  the  indulgence.  In  either  case,  it 
is  not  easy  to  see  what  value  indulgences  can  have  by  them- 
selves, and  what  is,  in  reality,  the  power  of  granting  them.  We 
shall  have  to  return  to  this  subject  at  another  place. 

The   pope's    counsellors,    accordingly,  resolved   to   leave  the 
question  at  rest.     He  confined  himself  to  reforming,  but  very 

'   Commentar}^  on  the  Fourth  Book  of  The  Sentences. 


Chap.  I.  1522.  PROJECTED   REFORMS.  5 

quietly,  and  with  a  most  carel'iil  avoidance  of  any  apparent  con- 
cession, some  part  of  what  had  been  most  criticised  in  the  traffic 
of  indulgences. 

This  first  step  in  the  path  of  the  reforms,  by  which  he  had 
flattered  himself  that  he  was  to  stop  the  progress  of  Luthcran- 
ism,  was  almost  the  last  which  he  was  to  succeed  in  eflectino-. 
"VVe  shall  also  have  to  show  elsewhere,  with  more  details,  what 
the  best-intcntioned  popes  had  to  encounter  on  every  side  in  the 
way  of  resistances,  obstacles,  and  inextricable  embarrassments. 
There  were  then  at_Ilome,  according  to  Ranke's  calculations, 
two_thousand  five  hundred  venal  chaigeS)  the  property  of  titu- 
lars, whose  incomes  ought  to  have  corresponded  to  the  interest 
of  the  capital  sunk  in  purchasing  them.  They  were  created  in 
batches,  according  as  the  exigencies  of  the  treasury  required  ;  one 
day  twenty-five  secretaries,  another  fifty  registrars,  and  all  ac- 
C]uircdJ<lic. right  of  living  at  the  expense  of  Christendom  ;  unless 
the  purchase-money  were  repaid,  which  it  would  have  required 
enormous  sums  to  do,  they  could  not  be  touched  ;  to  diminish 
the  revenue  would  therefore  have  been  unjust.  "  Yes,  dear 
Leo,"  wrote  Luther  in  1520,  "  vou  remind  me  of  Daniel  in  the 
den,  and  of  Ezekiel  among  the  scorpions.  What  could  you  do 
alone  against  all  those  monsters  ?  Let  us  add,  moreover,  three 
or  four  learned  and  virtuous  cardinals  : — Were  you  to  Imzard 
attempting  a  remedy  for  so  many  abuses,  w^ould  you  not  be 
poisoned  ?  0  wretched  Leo,  seated  on  that  accursed  throne  I 
If  St.  Bernard  felt  compassion  for  his  pope  Eugenius,  what 
shall  not  be  our  lamentations  for  thee,  after  a  farther  four  hun- 
dred years'  increase  of  corruption  ! — Yes,  thou  shouldst  have  to 
thank  me  for  thy  eternal  salvation,  were  I  to  succeed  in  burst- 
ing that  dungeon,  that  hell  in  which  thou  dost  find  thyself  im- 
prisoned." Leo  X.  alas  I  did  not  think  himself  so  very  ill  off 
in  that  frightful  prison.  He  did  his  best  to  embellish  it  with  all 
that  was  festive  and  magnificent ;  with  those  farces,^  in  short, 
that  had  made  it  the  most  splendid  and  amusing  Court  in  Eu- 
rope ;  but  one  may  readily  conceive  what  a  pious  and  serious 
man  must  have  suffered,  while  lying  in  that  den  and  unable  to 
extricate  himself,  on  seeing  it  the  prolific  source  of  all  the 
Church's  murmurs,  and  all  its  evils,  and  all  its  causes  of  ofience. 
Adrian  had  not  been  three  months  on  the  throne  when  he 
groaned  to  think  how  wanting  he  was  in  ability  to  accomplish 
his  fondly-cherished  reforms  ;  and  he  had  not  been  in  it  a  year 
when,  in  the  bitterness  of  disappointment  and  vexation,  the  ex- 

'  Pallavicini,  B.  I.  eh.  ii.  It  was  to  provide  tlie  money  required  for 
these  farces  that  Leo  X.  himself  expected  nearly  twelve  lumdred  of  the 
offices  we  have  nieutioned. 


6  HISTORY    OF  THE    COUNCIL    OF   TRENT.  Book  I. 

termination  of  the  Lutherans  seemed  the  only  feasible  means  of 
having  done  with  them. 

He  began,  accordingly,  to  sound  the  dispositions  of  the  princes 
of  Germany  ;  but  he  found  them  generally  far  from  zealous  in 
a  cause  which  they  had  long  been  accustomed  to  identify  far 
more  with  the  interests  of  the  pope  than  with  those  of  religion 
and  the  Church.  Those  sovereigns  that  were  farthest  removed 
from  Lutheranism,  were  less  afflicted  at  its  jDrogress  than  se- 
cretly gratified  at  the  disappointments  of  the  Court  of  Rome  ; 
and  old  Germany  had  not  ibrgottcn  the  humiliating  spectacle 
of  her  emperor  grovelling  for  three  days  in  the  snow  at  the  bot- 
tom of  the  walls  of  Canossa.^  The  remembrance  of  Henry  lY, 
weiofhed  heavilv  on  all  the  electoral  and  ducal  crowns.  "  Lu- 
ther  is  a  demon  I"  the  pope  exclaimed  to  them.  "  Ay,"  thought 
iliey,  "but  he  is  an  avenging  demon."  And  they  were  in  no 
haste  to  lay  an  arrest  on  his  proceedings. 

The  diet  was  about  to  meet.^  Did  the  pope  hope  to  obtain 
fiom  the  princes  in  a  body,  what  each  individually  had  all  but 
refused  ?  If  he  flattered  himself  with  this  prospect,  he  was  soon 
to  be  undeceived.  Meanwhile  he  neglected  nothing  that  could 
help  him  to  break  with  that  hated  past  of  which  he  felt  him- 
self the  heir.  All  the  disorders  with  which  the  Court  of  Rome 
was  reproached,  he  humbly  confessed  ;  to  every  reasonable  and 
useful  proposal  he  engaged  to  apply  his  endeavours ;  but  in  spite 
of  all  this,  he  did  not  even  succeed  in  having  his  demand  for  an 
anti-Lutheran  crusade  taken  into  consideration.  These  engage- 
ments, it  was  seen,  it  was  beyond  his  power  to  keep ;  those  con- 
fessions were  admitted  to  be  sincere,  but  this  was  only  one  proof 
more  of  the  immensity  of  the  evil.  All  he  gained  by  them  was 
the  censure  of  his  Court,  where  he  was  openly  charged  with 
weakness,  cowardice,  and  folly ;  and  Pallavicini,  though  he  uses 
milder  expressions,  seems  to  have  been  sufficiently  of  this  opin- 
ion. He  came  to  the  conclusion  that  Adrian  was  a  holy  priest 
but  a  wretched  pope,  and,  in  short,  a  poor  creature. 

The  diet,  accordingly,  replied,  that  before  proceeding  to  extir- 
pate heresy,  measures  must  be  taken  for  extirpating  that  which 
was  the  cause,  or  at  least  the  occasion,  of  heresy.  It  had  seen, 
it  said,  with  the  liveliest  satisfaction,  that  the  pope  seriously 
thought  of  this.  It  had  no  doubt  of  a  council-general  being  in 
his  eyes  the  first  and  the  best  of  means. 

But  we  have  already  seen  that  ouq.  of  the  pope's  reasons  for 
testifying  to  his  readiness  to  undertake  so  many  reforms,  was 
precisely  this,  that  it  might  put  it  quite  out  of  people's  thoughts 


,.ti,»fc*jKf**-- 


*  lOrT.     Disputes  with  Gregory  VII. 
^  At  Niu'pmberer,  Xoveniber,  1522. 


t:HAP.  I  \yrj.  projected  exterminations,  7 

to_dyyai:j[^  of  obtaiiiiii^^  them  by  lucuiia  uf  a  cuLUicil.  Strong  in 
tTie  consciousness  ot"  liis  good  intentions,  he  had  supposed  hiriisclf 
in  a  better  position  than  any  one  else  for  preserving,  in  all  its 
fulness,  the  absolute  jjower  \vhich  he  confessed  had  been  so 
much  abused.  And  the  diet  had  not  only  asked  for  a  council, 
but  a  gor/iy,  ^/i:Cdg,_aJLuLXlEnsirau.  council,  convoked  as  soon  as 
possible,  and  with  the  ernpeiui  ;-  coii.-cui,  m  one  of  tlie  cities  of 
GrerFfniny  ;  thus  (•()lll|)l•i^inL^  in  the  compass  of  a  few  line-,  all 
thTTTwas  imt-^i  roni  lary  to  llie  pope's  \'ie\A's  and  iuterr.-ts.  And 
theT[talians  could  but  say,  with  redoubled  murmuring,  "  He  has 
got  only  what  he  has  brought  upon  himself." 

Ere  long  the  secular  princes  proceeded  to  still  greater  lengths. 
About  twenty  years  previous  to  this  period,  the  Emperor  Max- 
imilian had  caused  ten  of  the  main  grievances  of  Germany 
against  Rome  to  be  put  into  a  regular  form  ;  and  this  document, 
although  expressed  with  much  reserve,  had  produced  an  im- 
mense sensation.  The  time  for  such  reserve  had  now  gone  by. 
Maximilian  had  noted  ten  grievances;  the  princes  procet-deil  to 
note  a  hundred.  This  formed  the  famous  Centum  graven nhia 
— a  writing  which.  In  tlie  course  of  a  f '\a'  clays,  fouiul  its  way 
over  all  CT(n-many  and  Europe. 

The  djel  had  separated  iu  Marcli  (lo2a).  In  September, 
Adrian  died^„  Enjoying  the  estCLnn  of  his  enemies,  but  detested 
byThosewho  formed  his  immediate  circle,  he  congratulated  him- 
selfoii  his  death-bed,  on  his  escape  from  this  labyrinth  of  tor- 
menting rejections,  and  his  friend  Cardinal  Enckenwort  could 
write  upon  his  tomb  —  Here  lies  one,  who  in  his  hfe  found 
nothing  more  miserable  than  his  being  called  to  reign. ^ 

The  heir  to  his  embarrassment  began  to  pursue  quite  a  ditfer- 
ent  course.  As  for  obstacles,  Clement  VII. -  was  resolved  to  act 
jis  if  he  saAV  them  not ;  abuses  cbuiil  never  Ylraw  a  sigh  from  his 
breast ;  affronts  he  would  contrive  to  devour  in  silence,  at  least 
as  long  as  he  felt  that  he  was  not  in  a  condition  to  revenge  them. 
Accordinglv,  in  anew  ilicL^.  he  caused  it  to  be  seriously  asked, 
what  people  complained  about ;  and  on  being  referredTto  the 
himdrccl  grievances  of  the  preceding  yeaj;;^  he  replied  that  he  did 
Inot  Icnow  wdiat  people  w^ere  saying.  He  recollectcdTlaid  Uai-^ 
dinal  Campeggio,  his  ambassador,  that  a  certain  writing  of  that 
kind  had  been  in  circulation  ;  but  he  Avould  have  consi'tpfrd'TTiiTr 
self  guilty  of  insulting  thc~princ^sni^trrbuting  such  a  pamphlet 
to  tiioxoy  As  for  the  rest,  added  the  legate,  he  w^as  ready  to  give 
every  satistlictiou  to  the  Germans  ;  and  he,  Campeggio,  had  full 
powers  to  that  efiect.     He  was  then  asked,  where  he  proposed 

^  ,  .  .  Qui  nihil  sibi  infelicius  in  vita  tUixit,  quam  quod  imperarot. 
*  Julian  d^i  Medici,  cousin  of  Loo  X.  ^  Xurembertr,  15'21. 


8  HISTORY    OF   THE   COUNCIL   OF    TRENT.  Book  I. 

to  begin  ?  On  this  he  showed  the  plan  he  meant  to  follow,  com- 
prising some  good  enough  j^eforms,  hut  confined  almost  entirely 
to  the  1n\vpr  p.lRrp-y.  The  diet  replied,  that  it  was  ridiculous 
to  think  of  healing  the  leaves,  or  at  most  gome  branches,  while 
the  trunk~was  left  sickly  and  cankered.  In  an  edict  of  the 
lyth  of  April,  it  did  not  confine  itself  to  declaring,  as  it  had 
done  before,  that  it  were  good  to  call  a  council ;  it  decree^ 
that  a  council  should  actually  be  called,  ard   thn^  ^"^  °""?i  fW= 

possible  C  "^  • 

""TTampeggio  now  lifted  the  mask.  As  the  ettiperor^  was  in 
Spain,  his  brother,  the  Archduke  Ferdinand,  represented  him  in 
the  diets,  and  in  his  name  exercised  a  part  of  the  imperial  func- 
tions. The  legate  contrived  to  persuade  him  to  convoke  at 
Ratisbon  a  kind  of  counter-diet,  where  an  attempt  might  be 
made  to  amend  the  decrees  of  that  which  had  been  dissolved. 
The  meeting  did  take  place,  but  not  a  single  elector  was  there. 
Some  had  positively  refused  ;  the  rest  had  hesitated  ;  and,  in 
short,  no  one  came.  There  were  present  only  two  dukes,  one 
archbishop,  two  bishops,  and  the  deputies  of  nine  others.  Cer- 
tainly it  had  been  the  wisest  course  for  them  quietly  to  dissolve 
the  meeting  ;  but  the  cardinal  insisted.  On  the  6th  of  July, 
they  decreed  that  the  old  decree  of  Worms  against  the  Lutherans, 
should  be  put  in  force  ;  and  on  the  7th,  they  adopted  the  project 
of  reformation,  which  the  diet  had  rejected  as  insignificant  and 
ridiculous. 

Charles  V.  could  not  openly  give  his  sanction  to  decisions 
taken  without  regard  to  legal  forms ;  but  as  it  was  of  consequence, 
on  account  of  his  squabbles  with  France,  to  remain  on  as  good 
terms  as  possible  with  the  pope,  he  blamed  the  peremptory  tone 
of  the  Nuremberg  decree.  It  lay  with  him,  he  said,  and  with 
him  alone,  to  demand  a  council.  The  diet  might  request  him  to 
use  his  good  offices  with  the  pope  ;  but  as  for  acting  of  itself,  it 
had  no  right  to  do  so.  And  as  it  had  farther  decreed  to  meet 
again  at  Spires,  in  the  last  months  of  that  same  year,  to  see  how 
matters  went,  and,  if  need  Avere,  to  hasten  their  progress,  the 
emperor  prohibited  any  such  meeting. 

He  was  soon  to  speak  another  language.  Conqueror  of  Pavia,^ 
master  of  the  fortunes  of  Francis  I.,  his  victory  had  made  him 
master  of  Italy.  He  no  longer  stood  in  need  of  the  pope,  who 
was  now  no  more  to  him  than  one  of  the  petty  potentates  Avho 
shared  that  country  among  them.  In  June,  1526,  while  the  diet 
was  sitting  at  Spires,  he  himself  sent  an  order  to  deliberate  on 
the  aflairs  of  the  Church  ;  and  it  was  decided,  in  conformity  with 
his  views,  that  he  should  be  besought  to  endeavour  with  the 

^  Charles  V.  ^  1525. 


Chap    I.  1526.  DIET   OF   NUREMBERG.  9 

utmost  expedition  to  have  a  council-general,  or  failing  that  a 
national  council,  convened  in  Germany. 

This  M^as  a  new  step  ;  and  it  was  a  great  one.  If  the  court 
of  Rome  so  much  dreaded  a  council  open  to  all  its  friends  and  to 
all  its  influences,  what  would  it  not  apprehend  from  one  altogether 
German  ? 

Driven  to  extremity,  the  pope  did  not  wait  until  the  demand, 
should  be  presented  to  him.  Certain  imperial  decrees,  more  or 
less  hostile,  on  some  points,  to  the  rights  or  to  the  pretensions 
of  the  Church,  furnished  him  with  an  occasion  for  speaking  out. 
On  the  23d  of  June  he  wrote  a  violent  letter  ;  on  the  25th,  it 
was  followed  by  a  brief  in  much  milder  terms,  full  of  flatteries 
and  of  promises,  and  without  any  allusion  to  the  other.  Charles 
did  the  same.  In  a  first  letter,  meant  as  a  reply  to  the  first 
brief,  he  boldly  recriminates ;  he  will  appeal  from  it,  he  says, 
like  the  Lutherans,  to  a  universal  and  free  council.  In  another, 
written  also  two  days  after  the  first,  he  seems  to  have  forgotten 
the  first  altogether  ;  he  protests  his  respect  for  the  pope  ;  his 
love  of  peace,  his  desire  for  the  fraternal  union  of  the  two  powers. 
In  a  third  letter,  in  fine,  it  is  to  the  cardinals  he  addresses  him- 
self It  IS  for  the  cardinals,  says  he,  to  convoke  the  council, 
should  Clement  persist  in  refusing. 

He  knew  to  whom  he  spoke.  A  powerful  p*arty,  sustained  and 
encouraged  by  him,  had  been  labouring  for  some  lime  in  Rome 
itself,  to  bring  down  the  pope.  Cardinal  Pompey  Colonna,  head 
of  the  family  of  that  name,  had  declared  himself  on  the  emperor's 
side.  It  was  the  destiny  of  his  family,  he  would  say,  not  only 
to  be  hated  by  the  popes,  but  also  to  deliver  the  Church  from 
them.  "  If  his  ancestors  had  made  a  Boniface  VIII.  tremble,  he 
would  contrive  to  bring  a  Clement  VII.  to  reason."  And  it  was 
not  only  by  violent  measures  that  he  had  it  in  his  power  to 
torment  the  unhappy  pope.  Clement's  election  had  been  sig- 
nalized, it  would  appear,  by  some  dishonourable  doings.  There 
had  been  cabals,  and  promises  of  money  and  of  places  ;  not  at 
all  uncommon,  generally  speaking,  in  the  elections  of  those  days, 
yet  strictly  prohibited  by  the  canons  of  the  Church,  and  conse- 
quently sufficient,  should  the  emperor  concur,  for  efiecting  the 
deposition  of  the  pope  on  the  ground  of  his  being  an  illegitimate 
intruder.  Add  to  this  an  illegitimacy  of  another  kind,  that  of 
his  birth.  The  son  of  one  of  Julian  di  Medici's  mistresses,  he 
had  never  been  able  to  prove  that  his  father  had  married  her. 
In  creating  him  a  cardinal,  Leo  X.  had  caused  a  solemn  sentence 
to  be  passed,  in  which  his  legitimacy  was  acknowledged  ;  but 
this  was  only  an  additional  proof  that  it  had  till  then  been  at  least 
doubtful — and  people  had  continued  to  doubt.    Now,  the  ancient 

A* 


10  HISTORY   OF   THE    COUNCIL   OF    TRENT.  Book  I. 

canons  had  likewise  forbidden  the  elevation,  even  to  the  priest- 
hood, of  any  one  whose  birth  had  not  been  legitimate  or  regularly 
legitimated. 

The  storms  were  now  gathering  overhead  ;  but  the  pope  on 
his  part  had  lost  no  time.  Before  breaking  with  the  emperor  he 
had  made  sure  of  the  support  of  France.  All  the  oaths  which 
the  royal  prisoner  of  Pavia  had  been  made  to  swear,  in  his  prison 
at  Madrid,  for  the  recovery  of  his  liberty,  he  had  been  secretly 
loosed  from  by  the  pope.  Secretly  leagued  also  under  his  aus- 
pices against  the  emperor's  encroachments,  the  princes  of  Italy 
were  ready  to  rise  at  the  first  signal. 

They  rose  accordingly.  The  pope  then  sent  all  his  disposable 
forces  into  Lombardy  ;  but  no  sooner  was  Rome  left  defenceless, 
than  the  Colonnas  approached  its  walls  with  all  the  soldiers  and 
banditti  they  could  muster.  They  entered  the  gates.  The  pope 
wanted  to  wait  their  coming,  seated  on  his  throne,  with  the  tiara 
on  his  head,  and  the  cross  in  his  hand,  like  Boniface  of  old. 
"  Let  us  see,"  he  said,  "  whether  they  will  dare  to  lay  hands  on 
the  successor  of  St.  Peter  I"  Peter  himself  would  hardly  have 
known  who  he  was,  in  such  a  dress  and  with  such  appurtenances. 
Let  us  be  just  notwithstanding  ;  there  was  something  fine  in 
Clement's  purpose.  But  his  friends  took  fright,  and  advised  him 
not  to  be  so  confident.  The  Colonnas  were  not  the  men  to  go 
down  on  their  knees  ;  they  had  seen  the  popedom  too  close  at 
hand  ;  they  knew  what  fir- work  there  was  under  the  velvet  of 
its  throne,  and  what  pasteboard  under  the  gems  of  its  tiara. 
Clement  fled  to  the  Castle  of  St.  Angelo,  and  the  Colonnas  pil- 
laged the  Vatican.  Repulsed  by  the  people,  they  proceeded  to 
encamp  outside  the  gates,  whither  the  King  of  Naples,  at  his 
own  instance,  or  upon  orders  from  the  emperor,  sent  them  daily 
reinforcements.  The  pope  capitulated  ;  he  engaged  to  recall  his 
troops,  and  the  Colonnas  were  to  retire.  But  hardly  were  his 
troops  on  their  way  back  when  he  excommunicated  the  Colonnas, 
their  adherents,  their  friends — all  in  line  who  aided,  or  should  in 
future  aid  them.  This  was  neither  more  nor  less  than  to  ex- 
communicate the  emperor.  Taking  refuge  in  the  liouse  of  the 
Viceroy,  Pompey  Colonna  appealed  "  to  a  future  council,"  and 
the  appeal  was  found  mysteriously  attached  one  morning  to  the 
church-doors  in  Rome. 

Ere  long,  from  the  north  and  the  south  simultaneously,  the 
tempest  approached.  Here  the  viceroy  demanded  a  reason  for 
the  excommunication  of  the  Colonnas  ;  there  it  was  Charles  of 
Bourbon,  the  general  of  the  imperial  army,  who  advanced,  no 
one  knew  why — a  minister^of  the  evil  one,  according  to  some — 
the  minister  of  God,  according  to  others,  to  chastise  Rome,  and 


Chap.  I.  I5ir.  Tin-;    COLONNAS.  11 

there  1o  pcrith.  No  one  knew  at  tlie  time  whether  he  had  any 
order,  and  it  is  a  problem  to  this  day  whether  lie  had  any.  Cer- 
tain it  is,  that  he  had  none  to  the  contrary,  and  that  he  was 
never  seriously  disavowed. 

Clement  upon  this  oflercd  again  to  reinstate  the  Colonnas, 
The  viceroy  accepted  this  offer  and  returned  ;  Bourbon  made  no 
reply,  and  behold  liim  ere  long  at  the  foot  of  the  Avails  of  Rome  I 
On  the  Gth  of  May,  1527,  the  assault  is  given  ;  the  general  is 
slain,  but  the  city  is  taken,  and  fourteen  thousand  Germans,  al- 
most all  Lutherans,  are  left  to  see  to  the  emperor's  being  avenged. 
From  the  top  of  the  toAvers  of  St.  Angelo,  the  pope  looks  on 
while  his  city  is  pillaged.  He  sees  his  cardinals  led  in  proces- 
sion, mounted  on  asses.  The  bells  sound,  salvos  of  artillery  are 
fired.  It  is  Luther  whom  they  are  proclaiming  pope.  An  old 
soldier  crowned  with  a  tiara,  is  by  way  of  burlesque  enthroned 
in  his  name. 

Meanwhile,  from  one  end  of  Europe  to  the  other,  all  that  still 
cling  to  Roman  Catholicism,  and  to  the  Roman  Church,  are  in- 
dignant at  the  very  idea  of  an  imprisoned  pope.  But  the  first 
to  utter  groans  on  the  subject  is  Charles  V.  He  orders  proces- 
sions for  the  pope's  deliverance  ;  he  intermits  the  festivities  at 
Valladolid  on  account  of  the  birth  of  a  son  ;  there  is  but  one 
thing  that  he  forgets,  and  that  is  to  issue  orders  for  his  troops  to 
quit  Rome,  and  set  the  pope  at  liberty.  Infamous  farce  ;  and 
yet  it  lasted  six  whole  months. 

As  for  the  rest,  as  regards  dissimulation,  Rome  is  never  far 
behind.  Clement  proceeded  to  present  an  example  less  odious, 
indeed,  but  still  more  extraordinary. 

The  princes  who  were  leagued  again.st  the  emperor  had  now 
at  last  some  success.  A  French  army  occupied  the  kingdom 
of  Naples.  Tiie  pope  was  free.  Now  was  the  time,  if  ever,  for 
excommunicating  Charles  V.,  combining  with  his  enemies,  and 
giving  freedom  to  Italy.  Warmly  urged  to  declare  himself. 
Clement  hesitated,  drew  back,  refused.  In  secret  he  could  find 
no  expression  strong  enough  for  cursing  the  emperor ;  in  public 
he  flattered  him,  and  loaded  him  with  civilities ;  he  seemed  like 
one  who  never  dreamed  for  a  moment  that  Charles  had  had  any 
thing  to  do  with  the  siege  of  Rome,  or  his  six  months'  captivity. 

Why  this  change  ?  The  cause  of  it  was  an  enigma  to  no- 
body. Florence  had  availed  itself  of  the  popes  reverses  for  the 
purpose  of  shaking  ofi^  the  yoke  of  the  Medicis,  and  Clement  was 
bent,  above  all  things,  on  its  recovery.  To  this  Ave  must  ascribe 
his  meekness,  and  the  attentions  which  he  paid  to  the  only  one 
who  had  the  poA\'er  to  accomplish  that  object.  Besides,  nothing 
hut  a  sense  of  danger  and  resentment  could  have  united  him, 


12  HISTORY   OF   THE   COUNCIL  OF  TRENT.  Book  I. 

even  momentarily,  with  his  neighhours.  He  well  knew  that  it 
was  not  in  Germany  that  he  had  the  worst  enemies  to  fear ; 
and  that  he  had  more  need  of  the  emperor  to  aid  him  against 
the  princes  of  Italy,  than  he  had  of  those  princes  against  the 
emperor. 

Charles,  on  his  side,  began  to  need  the  support  of  the  court  of 
Rome.  Never  having  acknoAvledged  himself  the  author  of  the 
pope's  reverses,  his  pride  was  not  engaged  in  having  the  pontiff 
kept  in  abasement ;  and  so,  no  sooner  were  negotiations  com- 
menced, than  one  would  have  supposed  that  their  mutual  friend- 
ship had  never  been  clouded  for  a  moment.  The  pope  promised 
all  that  was  required  of  him  ;  Charles  Y.  made  all  the  returns 
that  were  asked,  and  engaged,  in  particular,  to  put  Florence 
again  under  the  power  of  the  Medicis.  One  point  alone  re- 
mained in  suspense,  and  that  again  was,  the  grand  affair  of  the 
council.  Charles  had  mentioned  it,  but  without  any  urgency, 
and  it  was  clear  that  for  the  moment  he  had  ceased  to  care 
about  it ;  and  Clement,  who  cared  about  it  still  less,  had  said 
neither  Yes  nor  No  in  reply. 

In  March,  1529,  a  new  diet  was  held  at  Spires,  and  much 
debating  took  place.  An  edict  was  passed,  bearing  that  the  in- 
noA'ations  already  received  might  be  tolerated  by  the  princes, 
but  that  new  ones  ought  not  to  be  authorized.  Against  this  de- 
cree six  princes  and  fourteen  free  cities  protested  ;  and  hence 
arose  the  name  Protestants,  which  was  ere  long  to  become  com- 
mon to  all  the  Reformed. 

The  pope  and  the  emperor  were  now  reconciled  ;  nothing 
seemed  wanting  but  that  they  should  embrace  each  other  before 
the  eyes  of  all  Europe.  In  November,  accordingly,  we  find 
them  met  at  Bologna,  lodged  in  the  same  palace,  and  eating  at 
the  same  table.  How  laughable  would  be  those  grand  scenes 
on  the  stage  of  human  politics,  were  not  their  chief  characteris- 
tics most  deplorable  and  most  immoral  I  But  let  us  proceed 
with  our  narrative,  and  cease  to  judge.  "VYe  shall  have  enough 
to  judge  ere  long. 

The  conferences  between  the  two  potentates  lasted  four  months. 
The  emperor,  from  all  that  appears,  had  seriously  returned  to 
the  idea  of  a  council.  He  insisted  on  having  it,  and  was  almost 
at  the  point  of  exacting  it.  Nevertheless,  Clement  succeeded  in 
diverting  him  from  his  purpose.  He  demonstrated — what,  in- 
deed, had  begun  to  be  evident — that  a  council  could  only  serve 
40  interpose  a  gulf  between  the  nhnvf^^-i  f^^^  T^ni-ne  and  the  Re- 
•(rrnirjj^  It  was  necessarv,  before  setting  about  having  ci}e, 
either  to  bring  back  tlie  lileformed,  or  to  crush  them.  It  was 
in  Ihis  spirit  that  Charles  V.  set  out  tor  (rermany.     A  diet  was 


Chap.  I    1530.  ALARMS    OF    CLEMENT   VII.  13 

about  to  be  opened  at  Augsburg,  and  Campeggio,  the  papal 
nuncio,  was  to  precede  him  there. 

Though  sure  of  the  emperor's  concurrence — as  far,  at  least, 
as  any  one  could  safely  trust  in  the  promises  of  Charles  V. — still 
Clement  was  not  without  alarm.  It  was  much  to  have  rid  him- 
self for  the  moment  of  the  dangers  of  a  council,  but  the  grand 
object  was  to  prevent  the  far  Avorsc  evil  of  the  diet  constituting 
itself  a  judge  in  matters  of  faith.  To  this,  even  Avithout  desiring 
it,  it  might  be  led  at  last.  Tiie  Lutherans  had  announced  their 
having  drawn  up  a  confession  of  faith,  and  this  was  to  be  pre- 
sented by  the  Elector  of  Saxony.  But  what  reception  would  it 
be  proper  that  it  should  receive  ?  If  not  at  once  condemned, 
people  everywhere  would  say  that  it  was  approved  ;  if  condemned 
at  its  reception,  this  would  imply  that  the  diet  was  acting  as  a 
couucil.  If  the  diet  should  refrain  from  meddling  with  it,  to 
whom  should  it  be  sent  ?  To  the  pope  ?  Clement  would  fain 
hope  not ;  and  not  without  reason.  To  a  future  council  ?  In 
that  case  one  must  be  called,  and  this  is  what  the  pope  desired 
above  all  things  to  avoid.  Meanwhile,  the  confession  made  its 
appearance  ;  and  already  it  had  come  to  be  commonly  called  the 
Confession  of  Augsburg.     But  what  was  to  be  done  with  it  ? 

By  dint  of  great  caution  and  contrivance,  the  nuncio  succeeded 
at  once  in  concentrating  the  dispute  between  the  divines  of  the 
two  parties.  "  I  learn,"  wrote  Luther  to  the  Elector  of  Saxony's 
chaplain,  Spalatin,  "  that  you  have  undertaken  an  admirable 
task — that  of  bringing  Luther  and  the  pojje  to  agree.  Should 
you  succeed  I  promise  to  reconcile  Christ  and  Belial."  On  some 
points,  nevertheless,  the  two  parties  agreed  ;  at  least  they  be- 
lieved that  they  were  agreed.  Melanchthon,  in  his  ardent  de- 
sire for  peace,  had  hazarded  certain  concessions,  which  neither 
Luther  nor  the  Lutherans  could  ratify.  Moreover,  even  had 
those  first  points  been  got  over,  there  were  quite  enough  left  on 
which  it  was  evident  that  they  never  could  hope  to  come  to  a 
common  understanding. 

The  conferences  now  began  to  languish  ;  nothing  more  could 
be  expected  than  that  they  would  be  broken  up  as  soon  as  the 
chief  points  in  dispute  should  be  brought  forward.  The  emperor 
had  been  too  much  accustomed  to  act  to  permit  his  remaining 
long  a  mere  spectator.  In  a  first  edict  he  allowed  the  Lutherans 
six  months  to  make  up  their  minds  to  become  Roman  Catholics ; 
in  a  second,  he  regulated  and  determined,  with  the  air  of  a  pope, 
what  men  were  to  believe  and  teach,  until  the  approaching 
council,  on  all  the  controverted  points.  To  the  refractory  he  de- 
nounced imprisonment  and  death. 

And,  amid  the  general  stupefaction,  at  a  time  when  all  the 


14  HISTORY    OF    THE    COUNCIL    OF   TRENT.  Eook  I. 

human  props  of  the  Reformation  seemed  ready  to  fall  away,  "  I 
saw,  not  long  since,"  cried  Luther,  "  a  sign  in  the  heavens.  I 
Avas  looking  out  of  my  window  at  night,  and  beheld  the  stars 
and  the  whole  majestic  vault  of  God  held  up,  without  my  being 
able  to  see  the  pillars  on  which  the  Master  had  caused  it  to  rest. 
And  yet,  there  was  no  appearance  of  its  being  about  to  fall. 
There  are  some  men  who  look  about  for  those  pillars,  and  would 
fail  touch  them  with  their  hands.  And  because,  forsooth,  they 
cannot,  they  begin  to  tremble  anon  and  to  lament.  They  fear 
that  the  sky  mav  fall.  .  .  .  Poor  souls  I  Is  not  God  always 
there?" 

To  the  contraveners,  then,  the  prospect  was  that  of  imprison- 
ment and  death. 

The  conclusion  suited  the  pope  admirably,^  but  not  the  prem- 
ises. Iso  doubt  the  imperial  edict  was  rigorously  Roman 
Catholic  ;  Charles  V.  said  nothing  in  it  that  Clement  would  not 
have  said  in  his  place.  But  was  it  for  Charles  to  speak  on  this 
occasion  ?  What  right  had  he  to  say,  "  This  is  the  faith,  and 
that  is  not  the  faith  .'''  After  his  having  made  himself  pope  in 
one  sense,  the  Elector  of  Saxony,  or  any  other  prince,  might 
equally  make  himself  so  in  another. 

Clement  took  the  best  course,  by  quietly  leaving  to  be  pre- 
sumed that  nothing  had  been  done  without  his  approval.  He 
himself  wrote  to  all  the  princes,  recommending  them  to  execute 
the  edict.  The  Pmiestants  among  them  refused  ;  and  as  the 
emperor  talked  of  re.-?orting  to  compulsion,  they  rosolverl  tn  unitff 
for  the  common  defence  of  their  str\tes  and  th^jv  fn.ith.  Such 
was  the  origin  of  the  Leap-ue  of  Smalcalde  (1531). 

Notwith.?tancling  the  League^  Charles  still  found  himself 
strono-  enough  to  act  against  them  ;  but  the  nearer  the  moment 
for  action  approached,  the  more  repugnant  did  he  feel  to  fight 
as  the  mere  soldier  of  the  pope.  It  was  from  a  council  onh^ 
thought  he,  that  he  c^nl^  -wUh  nny  f]pnpnn.y  yaceive  tlip  swnjfl 
with  which  he,  the  emperor,  was  to  march  against  the  Lutheraiig . 
Hence  arose  a  fresh  pressure  on  the  pope,  and  fresh  tergiversa- 
tions on  his  part.  He  consented  to  the  calling  of  a  couiiciL  ^"i^' 
on  condition  that  it  should  be  held  in  ins,  the  Tapal  States.  Hr, 
consented  to  the  Protestants  being  heard,  but  on  condition  that 
thr  bifhnpr,  ^'^"ording  to  use  [Hid  WOUi,  should  alone  have  lb e 
ri^it  If?  vile,  in  a  word,  it  was  easy  to  see  that  were  all  these 
demands  to  Be  conceded,  it  would  only  be  at  the  last  extremity 
that  he  would  yield  his  consent  and  co-operation. 

^  "One  lias  a  right  to  destroy  those  venomous  plants  witli  fire  and 
sword,"  said  Canipeggio,  in  tlie  name  of  tlie  pope,  in  his  "  Instructio 
data  Caesai'i  in  dipt  a  Auenstana." 


Chap.   I.  i:31.  CHARLES    V.    IMPATIENT  15 

The  emperor  now  began  to  be  impatient.  The  Turks  were 
all  tlie  while  making  rapid  advances,  and  a  few  days  more 
would  find  them  at  the  gates  of  Vienna.  Charles  V.  required 
all  the  forces  that  Germany  could  furnish,  and  the  Protestants 
refused  theirs  unless  the  Edict  of  Augsburg  wasj:eyok£d.  This 
poiiit  was  conceded  ;  llic  pope  reclaimed  in  vain;  freedom  of 
conscience  was  granted,  but  the  decree  ran  thus,  "  until  the  _ 
council."  The  summons  was  to  be  issued  in  six  months,  and 
the  opening  was  to  take  place  in  a  year.  And  so,  when  hardly 
done  with  the  conquest  of  the  Turks,  we  find  Charles  again  in 
Italy.  New  conferences  followed  with  the  pope,  and  new  tergi- 
versations, so  that  the  parties  separated  almost  in  a  quarrel. 

The  pope  now  returned  to  the  French  alliance,  and  Germany 
and  France  being  at  peace,  Clement  could  closely  unite  himself 
with  the  king  without  breaking  ostensibly  with  the  emperor. 
The  negotiations  went  on  jjrosperouslj^  Catherine  di  Medicis, 
the  pope's  niece,  Avas  to  marry  Henry,  second  son  of  Francis  I., 
and  that  monarch,  on  his  side,  Avas  to  employ  all  his  influence 
with  the  Germans,  in  order  to  prevail  on  them  either  to  renounce 
altogether  the  idea  of  a  council,  or  to  consent  to  its  being  con- 
vened in  Italy.  He  tried  this,  but  found  them  intractable.  By 
dint  of  solicitation,  he  obtained  their  promise,  that  they  would 
consent  to  a  council  being  held  out  of  Germany,  provided  it  were 
not  to  be  in  Italy. 

Where  then  should  it  be  held  ?  The  French  ambassadors 
suggested  Geneva  as  the  proper  place,  on  which  the  pap^^skecT 
.if  his  ally  were  jesting  with  him,  by  proposing  a  city  iii  whicIL 
Catholicism  wa^i  nt  thp.  Inwpst  elxb.  Shortly  afterward  Clement 
\ii.  iell  sick,  and  his  last  days  were  embittered  by  the  defection 
of  England.  He  died,  he  said,  Avithout  any  regrets  ;  he  had 
done  his  duty  in  opposing  Henry  YIII.'s  divorce.  Possibly  so, 
and  Roman  Catholic  historians  have  sufficiently  praised  him  for 
it ;  only  it  is  forgotten,  that  before  condemning  that  famous 
divorce,  he  had  long  shown  himself  quite  favorable  to  it.  The 
very  act  of  approval  had  been  drawn  up.  Pallavicini  denies, 
while  Guicciardini  aliirms  this,  and  Burnet^  proves  it  by  the 
production  of  pieces  which  clearly  suppose  either  the  existence 
of  the  brief  or  a  formal  promise  to  publish  it. 

Paul  III.,  Clement  YII.'s  successor,  Jiad  been  cardinal  under 
six  popes  ;  no  man  was  more  deeply  conversant  with  all  the 
secrets  of  Roman  policy.  He  saw  that  for  the  moment  resist- 
ance was  impolitic  ;  and,  accordingly,  hardly  had  he  taken  his 
seat  on  the  throne  when  he  bepran  to  spenk-  nt  tho.  ppuncil  as  the 

^  Letters  of  Henry  VIII.  and  Wolsei/.  Burnet,  Collection  of  Records. 
See  also  Herbert's  Life  of  Henry  VIII,  and  Ranke's  Popes. 


16  HISTORY    OF   THE    COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  I. 

sole  remedy  for  the  evils  of  the  time.     He  made  it  his  own  affair, 
and  outstript  all  men's  wishes  for  it. 

Ten  years,  notwithstanding,  were  destined  still  to  elapse  be- 
tween words  and  deeds.  It  is  true  that  people  were  not  long 
of  seeing  Avhat  they  had  really  to  expect  from.  him.  Amid  the 
plans  of  reform  which  he  took  a  pleasure  in  unfolding,  and  for 
the  execution  of  which  he  desired  nothing  better,  he  would  say, 
than  the  support  of  a  council,  two  youths,  the  one  sixteen,  the 
other  hardly  fourteen  years  of  age,  were  at  once  created  cardi- 
nals— and  these  youths  were  his  own  children.^ 

In  spite  of  this  scandal,  or,  perhaps,  because  of  this  scandal, 
and  in  order  to  lessen  the  noise  it  made,  he  declared  (January, 
1535)  that  the  convocation  was  about  to  meet.  Yergerio  had 
set  off  for  Germany.  He  was  to_see  alLthejprinces,  alljthe  men 
of  influence  :  the  Roman  Catholics,  to  keeptheijOronL^ppjasirLg; 
aTcouncil  held  "m  Italy  ;  the  Protestants,  to  prevail  on  them  to 
"engage'To  observe  its  decrees  ;  LutherrXiuther  most_espegialhtL,- 
to  keep  him  irom  opposing  it.  What  idea,  then,  could  have 
been  formed,  we  do  not  say  of"conscience,  but  of  mere  human 
self-respect,  by  these  men,  when  w^e  see  them  capable  of  imagin- 
ing that,  after  eighteen  years  of  warfare,  Luther  could  still  have 
remained  accessible  to  their  seductions  ?  Vergerio  saw  him  only 
once,  for  a  very  short  time,  according  to  some,  and  for  a  very 
long  time  according  to  others.  What  is  certain  is,  that  he 
gained  nothing,  and  that  some  years  afterwards  this  "  great 
mignon  ol  Lhe  pope,"  as  a  chronicler  calls  him,  went  himself 
over  to  the  Reformation.  As  for  the  princes,  the~RomanT}ath-^ 
olics  were  unanimous  in  declgri^ig  thn.t  tbny  hnrl  nn  wisK-ifH^-flf 
council  held  m  Italy,  and  the  Protestants,  that  they.Jiad- no 
wTsh  tor  one-lrctd  iu_j[aIylQr  nny  whnn^;  if  thpi  pnpt^  wns  to  be 
at  the  head  ot  it.  ~" 

From  all  this,  Paul  would  have  gladly  allowed  himself  to 
conclude,  that  it  was  no  longer  to  be  dreamt  of;  but  he  was 
pushed  on  in  spite  of  himself  "  A  council,"  reiterated  the  em- 
peror, "  a  council  we  must  have  I  .  .  .  I  charge  myself  with  the 
execution  of  its  decrees."  He  consented,  besides,  in  spite  of  the 
princes,  to  its  meeting  in  Italy.  Thus  tliere  was  no  longer  any 
pretext  either  for  refusal  or  delay.  Paul  submitted,  and  fixing 
on  the  city  of  Mantua,  the  7tli  of- May  of  the  following '  year 
(1537)  was  appointed  for  the  opening. 

*  His  grandchildren,  Alexander  Farnese  and  Gui-Ascagnio  Sforza,  the 
issue  the  one  of  his  son  Lewis  Farnese,  and  the  other  of  his  daughter 
Constance.  The  follies  of  his  youth  had  been  such,  that  his  mother 
had  found  it  necessary  to  have  him  shut  up  in  the  Castle  of  St.  Angelo, 
from  whicli  he  escaped  by  letting  himself  down  by  a  rope. 


Chap.  I.   1538.        PAUL   III.— ABORTIVE    CONVOCATION  17 

Hardly  had  the  bull  of  convocation  appeared  when  it  was 
evident  that  it  would  end  in  nothing.  Germany,  France,  En- 
gland, Italy  itself,  were  all  in  a  ferment  with  protests.  Nay,  the 
very  Duke  of  Mantua,  of  whom  Paul  had  reckoned  himself  so 
sure,  started  a  thousand  difficulties  with  respect  to  the  favour 
proposed  to  be  shown  to  his  city.  Paul  then  fixed  on  Vicenza. 
This  involved  a  sacrifice,  for  Vicenza  belonged  to  the  Venetians, 
who  were  often  at  enmity  with  the  Court  of  K.ome  ;  and  so  the 
})ope  took  advantage  of  this  change  to  put  ofl'  the  opening  for  a 
year.     He  fixed  it  for  the  1st  of  May,  1538. 

On  that  day  his  legates^  were  at  Vicenza  :  there  they  wailed 
for  the  arrival  of  the  bishops  ;  no  bishops  came.  As  for  those 
of  Italy,  a  word  from  Paul  would  have  sufficed  to  send  a  host 
of  them  ;  but  he  felt  that  he  was  bound  to  wait  until  some,  at 
least,  appeared  from  other  quarters.  The  legates  waited  three 
whole  months,  still  nobody,  actually  nobody,  appeared.  It  be- 
gan to  be  evident  that  the  emperor  himself  had  no  longer  any 
wish  for  a  council,  for  there  were  plenty  of  bishops,  both  in 
Spain  and  Austria,  whom  he  might  at  once  have  sent.  Upon 
this  the  pope  recalled  his  legates,  but  without  revoking  the  sum- 
mons of  convocation.  He  fixed  the  opening  for  the  month  of 
April,  1539  ;  afterwards,  in  a  final  bull,  the  time  was  adjourned 
indefinitely. 

We  shall  not  enter  into  the  details  of  the  negotiations  of  all  sorts 
which  occupied  the  years  1538,  1539,  and  1540,^  for  we  should 
only  have  to  behold  anew,  under  almost  identically  the  same 
forms,  all  that  we  have  had  hitherto  to  observe.  We  should  see 
the  same  feelings  of  repugnance,  the  same  obstacles,  the  same 
oscillations.  We  hold  ourselves  bound  to  omit  nothing  that  is 
essential,  but  by  no  means  to  say  every  thing.  The  preliminaries 
of  the  council  fill  a  whole  book  in  Sarpi,  and  three  in  Palla- 
vicini. 

It  was  in  1511,  at  a  new  interview  between  the  pope  and  the 
emperor,  that  the  city  from  which  it  was  to  derive  its  name  was 
first  spoken  of  as  that  in  which  it  was  to  meet.  Trent,  in  the 
heart  of  the  Tyrol,  oflered  the  advantage  of  being  oiia  of  the 
most  central  cities  ofEuropeV  It  was  neither  so  very  Italian  as 
tnat  tne  Germans  should  refuse  to  repair  to  it,  nor  .^n  vcry~r4ni;^ 

'  Campeggio,  Sinionetta,  and  Aleander. 

*  It  -was  in  1538  that  there  appeared  the  famous  Condlhim  <Jc  Emen- 
danda  Ecclesia,  addressed  by  Paul  III.  to  the  Comiuission,  Avhich  he  had 
charged  with  drawing  up  a  statement  of  the  disorders  of  the  Church. 
To  it  we  would  refer  beforehand  those  of  our  readers  who  may  think 
we  exaggerate  matters  in  what  we  shall  have  to  say  of  the  evils  signal- 
ized in  that  memoir.  It  bears  the  signatures  of  all  the  most  respect- 
able Romanists  of  the  time,  Contarini,  Sadolet,  Giberto,  Aleander,  dire. 


18  HISTORY    or   THE    COUNCIL  OF   TREiNT.  Book  I, 

man  as  to  make  the  pope  despair  of  remaining  master  of  any 
assembly  that  mighty  be  hel(iin_iti_  He  only  thought  it  very 
far  from  Romeyhut  after  so  many  disputes  and  altercations  he 
had  reason  to  think  himself  fortunate  when  other  parties  were 
content.  Time,  besides,  was  pressing.  The  diet  had  again 
decreed,  at  Ratisbon,  that  something  absolutely  must  be  done, 
and  that  if  there  was  to  be  no  council-general,  one  must  be 
convened  in  Germany.  Accordingly,  the  bull  of  convocation 
appeared  early  in  1542,  and  the  1st  of  Isovember  was  fixed  for 
the  opening. 

While  these  things  were  transacting,  war  again  broke  out 
between  the  emperor  and  France.  It  was  meant,  nevertheless, 
that  matters  should  proceed.  The  pope  sent  his  legates,  and 
the  emperor  an  ambassador  and  some  bishops.  After  waiting 
seven  months  without  any  one  else  appearing,  those  who  had 
come  went  away,  and  all  was  broken  off  anew. 

AYho,  shall  we  say,  was  in  fault  ?  Francis  I.,  it  was  said, 
for  it  was  he  that  broke  the  truce.  Francis  I.  took  revenge  on 
the  Protestants  ;  he  was  resolved  to  shew,  that  if  he  had  broken 
up  the  council,  he  was  not  on  that  account  the  less  a  Roman 
Catholic.  The  victims  he  sent  to  the  stake  would  soon  have 
regained  for  him  the  friendship  of  the  pope,  much  disposed  as 
the  pontitr  was  otherwise  not  to  allow  his  irritation  to  go  too 
far  against  any  thing  that  contributed  to  delay  the  great  afiair. 
Charles  Y.,  besides,  had  united  himself  with  Henry  YHL,  that 
excommunicated  heretic  and  personal  enemy  of  the  Pope  ;  the 
Diet  of  Spires  had  passed  an  edict  so  frightfully  tolerant,  that  it 
seemed  to  have  been  dictated  by  the  Protestants.  The  pope  re- 
claimed, urged,  and  threatened.  The  emperor  held  his  peace, 
and  followed  his  own  course. 

Peace,  in  fine,  was  proclaimed  between  Charles  and  Francis, 
and  one  of  the  articles  of  the  treaty  (24th  December,  1544) 
bears  that  they  were  to  unite  their  efforts  for  the  meeting  of  the 
council.  Paul  anticipated  them.  A  new  bull  was  published ; 
the  council  was  to  meet  on  the  15th  of  March.  It  was  the  em- 
peror now  who  was  angry ;  he  thought  it  strange  that  he  had 
not  been  consulted  about  the  fixing  of  the  time  ;  but  as  he  made 
it  a  point  that  he  should  be  able  to  say,  that  \o  him,  and  to  him 
alone,  the  world  was  to  be  indebted  for  the  council,  Jie  himself 
became  the  grand  mover  in  the  matter  ;  and  in  all  the  courts  of 
Europe  his  ambassadors  eagerly  urged  that  the  bishops  might  be 
sent  to  attend  it.  Paul  appointed  his  legates  ;  there  were  still 
to  be  three,  but  three  new  ones.     These  were  the  Cardinals  del 

'  Trent  was  n,  dependence  of  the  Empire,  but  the  bishop  held  the 
government  of  it. 


Chap.  1.  1515.  RETROSPECT.  I'J 

Monte,  Sauta-Crocc,  and  Pole.  This  last  (Reginald  Pole)  ^vas 
of  the  royal  family  of  England.  The  two  others  we  shall  here- 
after see  occu})ying  the  papal  throne.  Europe  now  began  to  be- 
lieve that,  for  this  time  at  least,  the  council  would  not  pass  ofl' 
in  smoke. 

And  now,  before  proceeding  farther,  shall  ^^■e  pau.se  lor  a  lit- 
tle, and  take  a  retrospect  of  what  had  been  done  ?  We  have 
been  rapid  enough  in  our  narrative  for  the  attentive  reader  to  seize 
its  general  features,  and  to  deduce  its  legitimate  consequences. 
Mutual  distrust,  hitrigues,  misapprehensions,  and  quarrels  of  all 
sorts,  acts  of  violence  and  acts  of  baseness,  together  Avith  the 
most  inextricable  mingling  of  interests,  views,  and  passions,  all 
manifestly  and  grossly  human — such  was  the  chaos  from  which 
the  council  was  to  emerge  ;  such  was  the  basis  on  which  that 
seat  was  to  be  constructed  from  which  God  himself  was  to  be 
cousidered  as  about  to  speak.  Meanwhile,  he  who  had  been 
contemptuously  called  by  Leo  X.  "  a  clever  fellow,"  had  been 
permitted  by  God  to  see  Europe  pervaded  with  his  doctrines  ; 
and  that  council  which  Luther  had  called  for  in  1517,  and 
which  he  might  have  dreaded  in  1520 — in  lo4o,  even  before  it 
had  been  opened,  had  altogether  ceased,  before  he  descended  to 
the  grave,  to  give  any  serious  ground  of  alarm  to  the  Reforma- 
tion. It  had  lost  its  charm  before  it  met.  T\ventv-five  vears 
of  delays  had  proved  superabundantly — 

To  some,  that  Rome  did  not  wish  for  the  Council,  never  had 
seriously  wished  for  it,  and  could  not  have  any  wish  for  it : 

To  others,  that  the  princes  who  had  most  called  for  it,  really 
cared  very  little  about  it ; 

To  the  Protestants,  that  no  concession  Avhatever  would  be 
made  to  them  ; 

To  the  Roman  Catholics,  that  small  abuses  would  be  amended, 
and  the  great  ones  preserved  ; 

To  all,  in  fine,  that  it  would  not  be  the  Church's  council,  but 
the  pope's  council. 

And  as  for  those,  if  there  still  were  such,  who  persisted  in 
hoping  something  from  it,  can  it  be  imagined  that  they  would 
at  that  time  have  dared  to  promise  to  its  dogmatical  decisions 
the  authority  which  has  been  given  to  them  since  ?  No  ;  the 
human  springs  of  the  machine  had  creaked  too  long  and  too 
lamentably.  They  were  destined  still  to  creak  too  long.  The 
authority  of  the  Council  of  Trent  commenced,  in  foct,  only  after 
its  close.  This  we  shall  prove,  and  without  ditiiculty  ;  but  this 
is  just  what  we  think  it  of  most  importance  to  prove  well. 


CHAPTER    II. 

(1545.) 
FIRST  CONVOCATION  :    INTRIGUES,  DIFFICULTIES,  AND  DELAYS. 

The  arrival  of  tlie  Legates — Three  years'  indulgence — Scruples — Four 
hundred  seats  and  no  bishops — Parturiunt  monies — The  imagination 
of  Father  Biner — Simple  arithmetic — A  notable  admission — Oecu- 
menical Councils — The  Church's  Representatives — Jerusalem  and 
Trent — Diplomacy — Had  the  Protestants  promised  obedience — Everj'- 
epoch  has  its  fixed  idea — Luther's  trepidation — The  real  object  of 
his  wishes — A^icious  circle — Where  was  the  doctrine  of  Infallibility 
— Affairs  of  Cologne — Who  was  in  the  wi'ong — Complications — By 
Avhat  did  the  Council  hold? — The  Procurators — Infallibility  by  Del- 
egation— Charles  \.  and  hei*esy — The  Pope's  ofii'ers — The  priest-king 
— Tlie  Morals  of  the  Popes — Xew  Scandals — Of  happy  memory — 
Papal  Infallibility — Certain  questions — The  Popedom  at  Rome. 

The  grand  day  of  the  opening  approached  at  last,  and  all 
eyes  in  Europe  were  fixed  on  the  small  town  which  was  to  be 
rendered  for  ever  memorable  by  the  proceedings  of  that  day. 

On  the  13th  of  March,  1545,  two  of  the  legates,  the  Cardi- 
nals del  Monte  and  Santa-Croce,  arrived  at  Trent.  They  came 
armed  with  two  papal  bulls  :  the  one  public,  merely  appointing 
them  to  preside  in  the  council  ;  the  other  secret,  authorizing 
them  to  dissolve  it,  should  the  pope's  interests  seem  so  to  require. 
This  was  nothing  new.  Martin  V.  had  taken  the  same  precau- 
tion when  the  Council  of  Pavia  met. 

A  vast  crowd  greeted  the  cardinals  on  their  arrival,  and  being 
received  as  princes,  they  responded  to  the  popular  enthusiasm, 
as  princes  indeed,  but  as  princes  of  the  Church.  Three  yeao's' 
indidf2:eiicc  was  bestowed  on  all  who  were  fortunate  enoujjh  to 
see  them  pass.  Then  came  a  scruple  to  perplex  them.  Every 
indulgence  proceeds  from  the  pope,  but  among  the  powers  con- 
ferred upon  them,  that  of  granting  indulgences  had  been  omit- 
ted. Legitimately,  therefore,  they  could  grant  none — no,  not 
for  three  days  ;  and  yet  they  had  granted  one  for  three  years. 
What,  then,  was  to  be  done  ?  They  wrote  to  Rome.  The  pope 
could  ask  for  nothing  better  than  to  have  to  confirm  what  his 
legates  had  done.  Three  years  I  what  is  that  to  him  ?  Thirty 
or  three  hundred  years  would  have  cost  him  no  more.     But,  be- 


Chap.  II.  1545.  THE   POPE'S    SCRUPLES.  21 

hold,  he  also  finds  a  scruple  to  annoy  him.  It  was  all  very  easy 
to  give  validity  to  the  indulgence  for  the  time  that  had  to  run  ; 
but  was  it  possible,  even  for  him,  to  declare  it  available  for  the 
time  during  which  it  had  been  absolutely  null  ?  God  himself 
cannot  change  the  past.  Let  people  do  as  they  might,  there 
must  always  have  elapsed  a  certain  time  during  which  the  faith- 
ful must  have  believed  that  they  had  what  they  had  not.  If 
any  of  them  had  died  during  that  interval,  they  must  have  passed 
into  the  other  world  with  a  false  passport.  This  apparently 
childish  embarrassment  proved  really  a  most  serious  afikir  for  a 
Roman  casuist.  There  was  no  getting  rid  of  it  directly  ;  but  it 
was  evaded  by  sending  the  legates  a  brief,  antedated  by  several 
weeks,  and  which  they  were  presumed  to  have  brought  with 
them  from  Rome.  Pallavicini  has  been  at  great  pains  to  put 
this  historical  incident  in  a  proper  light,  but  has  succeeded  only 
in  proving  that  he  himself  thought  it  very  strange. 

There  had  been  a  crowd,  then,  at  the  arrival  of  the  legates, 
but  people  began  to  ask  themselves  where  was  the  council.  Not 
a  bishop  had  appeared  except  Cardinal  Madrucci,  the  bishop  of 
Trent,  who  had  preceded  the  legates  in  order  to  do  the  honours 
of  his  city  and  of  his  palace.  Four  hundred  seats  were  never- 
theless prepared  in  a  place  set  apart  for  them  in  the  cathedral. 
Although  the  legates  were  far  fiom  having  any  desire  to  see  all 
these  filled,  yet  such  a  huge  void  could  not  fail  to  be  disquieting, 
and  to  have  much  the  appearance  of  an  afiront.  The  pope  felt 
greatly  annoyed.  He  was  well  aware  that  a  number  of  bishops, 
particularly  in  Italy,  had  thought  to  pay  court  to  him  by  not  re- 
pairing to  Trent ;  but  he  felt  at  the  same  time,  that  their  ab- 
sence would  be  attributed  to  him.  How  was  he  to  contrive  to 
bring  together  enough  without  their  being  too  many  ? 

The  14th  of  March  had  now  come,  still  there  was  nobody  ; 
the  loth — still  nobody,  and  the  opening  was  adjourned.  On  the 
23d,  Diego  de  Mendoza,  Charles  Y.'s  ambassador,  arrived  at 
Trent,  and  begged  that  they  would  hasten  proceedings.  '  The 
legates  held  council  as  to  what  should  be  done.  Three  bishops 
had  arrived,  were  they  to  open  the  council  ?  But  how  open  a 
general,  oecumenical,  and  universal  council  with  three  Italian 
bishops  I  Let  us  wait,  they  said,  for  a  few  days.  These  few 
days  were  to  be  prolonged  to  nine  months. 

-We  refrain  from  repeating  the  jests  that  passed  from  mouth 
to  mouth  when  people  began  to  see  the  ridiculous  issue  of  this 
solemn  convocation  of  Christendom,  after  being  twenty-five  years 
of  coming  to  the  birth.  Romanists  and  Reformed  could  not 
avoid  meeting  on  the  common  ground  of  an  ancient  apologue, 
already  suggested,  no  doubt,  to  our  readers,  and  to  which  the 


22  HISTORY   OF   THE    COUNCIL  OF  TRENT.  Book  I. 

name  of  the  premier  legate,  Del  Monte,  or  Of-the-Mountain,  gave 
a  burlesque  application.  But  let  us  not  lau^h.  This  is  a  his- 
tory, not  a  squib.  It  may,  however,  be  very  seriously  remarked, 
that  among  so  many  persons  to  whom  the  Council  of  Trent  has 
never  appeared  as  anything  but  an  immense  and  majestic  as- 
sembly, there  is  surely  more  than  one  with  regard  to  whom 
these  first  details  must  make  us  suspect  at  once,  that  the  imag- 
ination has  had  something  to  do  with  what  they  have  said  of  it. 
"  The  Council  of  Trent,"  says  one  of  its  apologists,^  "  was  com- 
posed of  all  that  was  illustrious  in  Germany,  Italy,  France, 
JSpain,  Hungary,  Bohemia,  England,  Ireland,  Portugal,  Poland, 
Sweden,  Belgium,  Moravia,  Illyria,  and  Greece."  We  shall 
soon  see  what  all  this  amounted  to.  When  the  imagiiuvtion 
takes  such  a  flight  as  this,  it  is  very  near  deserving  another 
name. 

And  since  we  have  touched  on  the  question  of  number,  we 
crave  leave  to  say  a  word  on  the  subject. 

We  shall  not  go  so  far  as  to  maintain  that  a  council  cannot 
be  properly  called  general,  unless  composed,  literally,  of  all  the 
bishops  of  the  Church  ;  but  from  this  generality  to  that  of  the 
Council  of  Trent,  the  distance  was  to  prove  so  wide,  that  one 
might  Avell  ask,  in  good  faith,  if  no  conclusion  was  to  be  drawn 
from  it.  We  do  not  think,  indeed,  that  a  more  numerous  assem- 
bly would  have  voted  differently  ;  the  doctrinal  decisions  proba- 
bly would  have  been  the  same.  But,  after  all,  had  we  as  much 
sympathy  for  the  results,  as  we  have  little,  it  would  always  re- 
main to  be  seen  whether  those  results  may  be  considered  to  have 
been  legally  and  honestly  obtained. 

In  all  deliberative  assemblies,  law,  or  custom,  has  fixed  a 
minimum  of  members  entitled  to  vote.  It  may  be  the  half,  the 
third,  or  at  the  least,  a  fourth  part  of  the  total  number  ;  below 
that  proportion  there  can  be  no  voting.  In  councils,  although 
there  is  no  formal  law  on  the  subject,  the  dictates  of  common 
sense  are  plain  enough  to  make  anything  else  unnecessary.  If 
you  summon  together  a  hundred  persons,  and  there  come  only 
ten,  no  doubt  you  may  allow  such  a  meeting,  strictly  speaking, 
the  name  which  it  Avould  have  had,  had  it  been  complete  ;  but 
it  is  clear  that  this  would  be  a  fiction.  Now,  let  us  see  what 
happened  at  Trent. 

There  were  three  convocations  in  all — the  first  (1545),  un- 
der Paul  III.,  the  second  (1551),  under  Julius  III.,  the  third 
(15G2),  underpins  IV. 

'  Father  Biner,  a  Jesuit. 


/ 


Chap.  11.  1j4j.  QUESTION  OF  NUMBER.  23 

In  the  last,  the  number  of  voters  rose,  towards  the  clo.sc,  to  two 
hundred  and  fifty.  This  was  a  considerable  number  ;  still,  it 
was  but  a  feeble  minority  of  the  bishops  of  Christendom.  Italy 
alone  reckoned  more  than  two  hundred  and  fifty  bishops. 

Yet  this  number,  relatively  so  small,  was  nearly  fourfold  w^hat 
had  appeared  at  the  two  other  convocations.  On  the  day  of 
opening,  there  Avere  only  five-and-twenty  ;  afterwards  we  find 
sixty,  at  most  seventy,  but  rarely  all  met  at  once  ;  in  several  of 
the  sessions  they  were  even  under  fifty.  And  yet  that  was  the 
period  at  which  were  regulated  and  fixed,  such  fundamental 
points  as  scripture,  tradition,  original  sin,  grace,  the  sacraments, 
ho,.  "  What  madness,"  said  Paul  IV.  one  day,  in  an  access  of 
ill  humour  and  candour,  "to  have  sent  threescore  bishops,  from 
among  the  least  capable,  to  a  small  city  among  the  mountains, 
there  to  decide  so  many  things  I"  It  is  true  that  this  madness, 
according  to  him,  consisted  in  not  having  simply  left  the  matter 
in  the  hands  of  the  men  of  ability,  of  whom,  he  added,  •'  Rome 
is  "full ;"  but  if  his  conclusion  is  not  ours,  his  exclamation  about 
the  threescore  bishops  is  not  the  less  w^orth  recording. 

Nothing  can  be  less  clear,  moreover,  than  the  distinctions  by 
which  Rome  has  come  to  endow  councils  with  the  imposing  title 
(Ecumenical,^  or  to  deprive  them  of  it,  according  as  it  suits  her 
to  accept  or  reject  their  decrees.  "What  legal  difierence  will  she 
show  us  between  the  Council  of  Nice  condemning  Arianisra, 
and  the  Council  of  Tyre,  ten  years  afterw^ards,  condemning  the 
faith  of  Nice  ?  That  of  Tyre,  you  say,  w^as  composed  only  of 
the  enemies  of  Athanasius.  An  Arian  will  reply,  that  neither 
were  there  in  the  other  any  but  the  enemies  of  Arius.^  But  at 
Nice  there  were  delegates  from  the  pope  present ;  at  Tyre  there 
were  none.  No  more  were  there  any  at  Constantinople  in  381. 
That  council,  nevertheless,  is  admitted  as  cecumeiiical,  although 
there  was  but  one  Latin  bishop  there  against  a  hundred  and 
forty-nine  Greeks.  At  Nice,  there  had  been  three  against 
three  hundred  and  fifteen ;  at  Chalcedon,  there  were  again 
three  against  three  hundred  and  fifty.  The  greater  number  of 
(Ecumenical  councils  have  been,  numerically  and  geographically, 
much  smaller  than  many  of  those  to  which  that  title  has  been 
denied."^  "  They  became  (Ecumenical,"  it  is  said,  "  by  the  sole 
fact  of  their  having  been  universally  approved."     This  is  a  mere 

'  Universal,  met  from  the  whole  inliabitcd  earth,  a\  liic-li,  in  the  Roman 
system,  implies  infallibility. 

-  Be  it  remembered,  that  \re  are  here  engaged  in  a  question  of  legal 
right  {droit),  of  forms,  and  -we  are  not  called  upon  to  pronounce,  for 
the  moment,  either  for  or  against  any  dogma. 

^  See  Jtirieu,  Referions  sur  leu  Conciles. 


24  HISTORY    OF  THE   COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  I. 

playing  with  words  ;  a  particular  assembly  does  not  become  a 
general  assembly  in  virtue  of  the  fact  alone  of  its  decisions  hav- 
ing been  generally  received ;  at  the  most,  it  will  be  said,  that  it 
is  equivalent  to  a  general  assembly.  Then,  is  it  well  consid- 
ered in  this  theory,  to  what  it  leads  ?  If  the  number  and  the 
nationality  of  those  present  prove  nothing — if  four  hundred 
bishops,  come  from  all  parts  of  the  Church,  can  form  only  a 
paiiicular  and  fallible  council,  whilst  another  with  forty,  may 
become  oecumenical,  infallible — what  then  are  they  both  at  the 
moment  of  their  taking  their  decisions  ?  Why,  nothing.  Their 
authority  depends  on  the  posterior  judgment  of  the  Church. 
Until  the  Church  shall  have  pronounced,  at  least  by  its  silence, 
on  all  the  points  regulated  by  the  assembly,  neither  the  faithful, 
nor  the  assembly  itself,  know  whether  they  can,  in  conscience, 
admit  what  has  been  decided.  In  this  manner,  therefore,  you 
escape  from  the  objection  founded  on  the  small  number  of 
bishops ;  and  had  they  been  no  more  than  ten,  the  council 
might  have  been  oecumenical ;  but  you  can  do  so  only  by  admit- 
ting that  every  assembly  of  this  kind,  were  it  to  be  composed  of 
a  thousand  bishops,  has  no  authority  of  itself.  It  is  only  a  con- 
sultative commission.  Its  judgments  may  be  reformed.  Infal- 
libility comes  to  it  from  elsewhere. 

"  Was  the  Council  of  Trent,"  says  Boyer,^  "  infallible  of  itself, 
or  in  virtue  of  having  been  subsequently  accepted  by  the  Church  ? 
This  we  may  regard  as  a  useless  question."  Yes,  at  the  close  of 
three  centuries;  but  we  have  now  to  do  with  1545.  We  make 
ourselves  spectators  of  the  first  proceedings  of  the  council ;  here 
then  there  is  a  question  of  right,  which  we  cannot  allow  to  be 
omitted.  Now,  then,  there  can  be  no  middle  course  ;  either  an 
a3cumenical  council  is  infallible  of  itself — but  it  is  not  so  unless 
it  be  veritably  oecumenical,  universal ;  or  it  becomes  infallible 
by  virtue  of  the  general  assent  of  the  Church,  in  which  case 
until  this  assent  is  ascertained,  its  decrees  are  only  opinions  not 
yet  clothed  with  the  authority  of  decrees. 

This  last  concession,  from  which  so  many  Roman  Catholics 
recoil,  is  made,  on  the  contrary,  by  the  ultramontanists  with  the 
utmost  eagerness.  They  view  it,  and  with  reason,  as  conduct- 
ing right  on  to  the  superiority  of  the  pope  over  councils,  and 
consequently  to  his  infallibility.  But  as  this  part  of  the  ques- 
tion Avas  debated  at  Trent  itself,  we  shall  recur  to  it  at  the 
proper  time  and  place. 

To  the  question  of  the  number  of  the  bishops  in  attendance, 
should  be  added,  in  justice  to  the  subject,  that  of  their  assumed 
exclusive  right  to  sit  in  councils. 

^  Director  of  the  Seminary  of  Saint-Sulpice. 


Chap.  II.  1545.  COUNCILS— HOW  COMPOSED.  25 

No  society  whatever  can  logically  have  for  its  representatives 
any  but  men  chosen  by  itself.  Now,  are  bishops  chosen  by  the 
Church  ?  Twelve  hundred  years  have  past,  during  which  the 
people  of  Roman  Catholic  Christendom  liave  had  no  part  in  the 
choice  of  their  chief  pastors.  Were  it  otherwise,  still  it  would 
be  no  more  than  an  ecclesiastical  and  human  affair.  Assuming 
that  you  have  proved  the  Church's  infallibility,  you  will  not 
have  thereby  proved  that  the  bishops  are  its  only  organs.  As- 
suming that  you  have  proved  the  infallibility  of  councils-gen- 
eral, you  have  still  to  demonstrate  what  is  maintained  at  Rome — 
"  That  it  is  by  Divine  right  that  councils  are  composed  of 
bishops."^ 

On  this  subject  one  may  well  be  confounded  at  seeing  with 
what  assurance  the  most  important  doctrines  and  the  most 
formal  theories  are  sometimes  deduced  from  a  phrase,  from  a 
word — while  conclusions  from  the  plainest  facts,  and  the  most 
circumstantial  details,  are  obstinately  resisted.  You  would  call 
by  the  name  of  council,  and  liken  to  posterior  councils,  the 
humble  meeting  held  by  the  a2)ostles  at  Jerusalem.^  Be  it  so. 
That  meeting  having  said — "  It  hath  seemed  good  to  the  Holy 
Ghost  and  to  us" — here,  as  you  will  have  it,  is  the  intervention 
of  the  Holy  Ghost  in  the  decrees  of  all  legitimate  councils.  You 
cannot  well  put  them  on  the  same  footing,  seeing  that  the 
apostles  were  individually  inspired,  and  that  the  bishops,  you 
admit,  are  not.  But  let  this  too  be  granted.  Take  these  words, 
if  you  will,  but  then,  at  least,  take  all  of  them.  "  Then  pleased 
it  the  apostles  and  elders,  with  the  wlwle  Church,  to  send," 
&c.,  so  the  passage  runs.  Hence,  it  seems  to  follow,  plainly 
enough,  that  the  inferior  ministers,  and  even  the  laity,  inter- 
vened. Pallavicini  is  very  merry  at  the  expense  of  those  who 
would  insist  that  the  Church,  the  whole  Church,  that  is  to  say, 
several  thousands  of  persons,  took  part  in  the  deliberation,  and 
asks  wliere  in  all  Jerusalem  a  place  could  have  been  found 
large  enough  for  such  a  meeting  ?  "  Evidently,"  he  concludes, 
"  there  was  only  a  certain  number,  a  small  number  of  the  laity." 
What  does  it  signify  ?  If  a  small  number  was  there,  is  this  less 
embarrassing  than  a  great?  The  author  is  compelled  to  add, 
in  order  to  escape  from  this  embarrassment,  that  they  did  not 
intervene  in  the  decision.  But  this  is  a  pure  invention,  con- 
tradicted at  once  by  the  general  tenor  and  by  the  details  of  the 
narrative.  The  more  you  shall  have  sought  to  represent  the 
apostles,  not  as  the  merely  spiritual  founders,  but  as  the  legis- 
lators and  organizers  of  the  Church,  the  better  right  would  you 
give  us  to  regard  nothing  as  having  emanated  from  them,  but 

'  Father  Binor.  ^  Acts,  ch.  xv. 

B 


26  HISTORY    OF    THE    COUNCIL    OF   TRENT.  Book  I. 

what  they  appear  to  have  made  it  a  matter  of  conscience  clearly 
to  teach.  Had  the  author  of  the  Book  of  Acts  had  the  least  idea 
that  the  laity  should  be  excluded  from  councils,  who  will  believe 
it  possible  that  he  could  write,  as  the  winding  up  of  his  nar- 
rative— "  Then  'pleased  it  the  ajoostles,  and  elders,  with  the 
Ivlwle  Church?'"  .  .  .  That,  as  a  general  position,  the  laity 
would  do  better  to  leave  doctrinal  questions  to  the  decision  of 
the  pastors,  is  incontestable  ;  that  the  Church,  in  convoking 
councils,  has  done  well  in  calling  only  bishops  to  them,  may  be 
plausibly  maintained ;  but  if  there  has  been  a  single  council 
which  was  not  prevented  from  being  legitimate  by  the  interven- 
tion of  the  laity,  and  if  this  council  be  precisely  that  whose  his- 
tory has  been  transmitted  to  us  by  an  inspired  author — then  it 
cannot  be  of  Divine  right  that  bishops  alone  enter  those  assem- 
blies, and  thereby  have  seized  the  monopoly  of  infallibility. 

"  Scripture,"  says  the  Roman  Catechism,  "  often  enough  em- 
ploys the  word  Church  in  designating  those  who  are  its  pastors, 
and  who  preside  in  it.  It  is  in  this  sense  that  Christ  has  said, 
if  he  whom  you  reprove,  does  not  hsten  to  you,  tell  it  to  the 
Church — for  here  it  is  evident,  that  by  the  Church  he  means 
the  pastors  of  the  Church."  What  is  evident  is  just  the  con- 
trary. "  Moreover,  if  thy  brother  shall  trespass  against  thee,  go 
and  tell  him  his  fault  between  thee  and  him  alone  :  if  he  shall 
hear  thee,  thou  hast  gained  thy  brother.  But  if  he  will  not  hear 
thee,  then  take  with  thee  one  or  two  more,  that  in  the  mouth 
of  tv/o  or  three  witnesses  every  word  may  be  established.  And 
if  he  shall  neglect  to  hear  them,  tell  it  unto  the  Church." 
Thus,  first  of  all,  thou,  quite  alone  ;  next,  one  or  two  persons  ; 
then  the  entire  community.  The  citation,  we  see,  is  doubly 
false  ;  we  might  even  say  triply  false.  False,  because  the  whole 
flock,  with  or  without  its  pastors  as  you  choose,  is  spoken  of; 
false,  because  here  the  word  Church  does  not  mean  the  Church  in 
general,  but  that  of  which  each  is  specially  a  member  ;  false,  in 
fine,  when  one  would  find  here  an  argument  in  favour  of  the 
dogmatical  authority  of  the  Church,  seeing  that  the  case  in 
hand  is  that  of  a  quarrel  between  two  individuals,  not  at  all 
a  question  to  be  resolved. 

And  now,  let  us  return  to  our  history. 

By  the  end  of  March  there  were  still  but  four  bishops,  and 
two  spoke  of  going  away.  To  give  them  something  to  do,  and 
keep  them  there,  a  kind  of  provisional  committee  was  constituted, 
which  the  legates,  as  a  matter  of  form,  consulted  on  a  certain 
number  of  affairs.  Into  this  Mendoza  was  admitted.  Ere  long 
this  committee,  having  the  air  of  persons  setting  themselves  to  a 


Ckap.  II.  1545.    rilOVISIONAL   COMMITTEE— DOUBLE  DESI'ATCIIE.'^.      27 

task  ill  good  earnest,  and  viewing  themselves  as  the  commence- 
ment of  the  council,  it  was  necessary  to  find  some  means  of 
checking,  without  giving  offence,  a  course  of  procedure  which 
could  not  fail  to  cause  uneasiness  as  soon  as  the  meetings  were 
at  all  numerous.  There  was  an  understanding,  accordingly,  be- 
tM'ecn  the  legates  and  the  pope,  that  there  should  always  be  two 
despatches,  the  one  confidential  and  secret,  the  other  containing 
no  more  than  those  parties  were  willing  should  be  communicated 
to  the  bishops.  "  Such  was  the  prejjaration  made  for  receiving 
the  communications  of  the  Holy  Ghost."  ^  To  be  sure  they  were 
only  human  afiairs  that  were  as  yet  treated  of;  and  no  doubt  a 
sovereign  has  a  right  to  send  confidential  notes  to  his  ministers. 
But  this,  in  courts,  is  a  thing  admitted  and  known  to  every  body  ; 
in  the  case  before  us,  the  bishops  knew  nothing  about  it.  There 
was  deception,  then,  in  their  being  left  under  the  impression 
that  every  thing  was  submitted  to  them.  We  shall  see  anon 
whether  political  affairs  Avere  to  have  the  pitiful  honour  exclu- 
sively confined  to  them,  of  having  double  despatches  and  notes 
secret  or  in  cipher. 

AYe  shall  not  stop  to  review  the  angry  disputes  that  arose  in 
the  course  of  April  on  the  subject  of  ranks  and  precedencies. 
With  these  we  do  not  charge  the  council  as  a  crime  ;  it  was  no 
fault  of  the  bishops  or  of  the  pope,  if  Charles  V.  by  his  ambas- 
sador, compelled  them  to  make  those  matters  the  subject  of  regu- 
lations. Still,  let  us  note  the  fact.  The  more  the  council  came 
to  resemble  a  purely  human  convention,  the  better  right  have 
we  to  ask  in  what  respects  it  was  the  work  of  God. 

MeanAvhile  the  diet  had  met  at  Worms.  The  emperor  was 
still  uncertain  whether  he  should  march  against  the  Turks  or 
the  Protestants. 

The  first  thing  done  was  to  cause  the  convocation  of  the  council 
to  be  intimated  to  the  Protestants,  and  this  to  remind  them  of 
these  two  things :  first,  that  they  had  been  the  first  to  speak  of 
a  council ;  second,  that  the  truce  was  about  to  close,  seeing  that, 
according  to  the  terms  of  the  decree,  it  was  until  the  aiyproacliing 
council  that  they  were  to  be  allowed  toleration  and  peace.  On 
this  last  point  any  warning  was  superfluous.  They  could  not 
doubt  that  the  emperor,  to  whom  the  pope  was  Avriting  letters 
upon  letters,  was  really  prepared  to  attack  them  the  moment  he 
ceased  to  be  disquieted  on  the  side  of  the  Turks. 

On  the  other  point,  their  sentiments  had  long  been  known. 
It  was  to  make  a  mere  jest  of  them  to  say — "  You  wanted  a 
council ;  here  it  is.  You  promised  to  submit  to  it ;  now  submit.*' 
It  was  evident  that  in  asking  for  a  council,  and  in  promising  to 

^  Jurieu. 


28  HISTORY    OF   THE    COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  I. 

surrender  and  obey,  Luther  had  never  meant,  nor  could  have 
meant,  a  council  held  by  the  pope,  composed  of  bishops  subject 
to  the  pope,  and,  in  fine,  manifestly  assembled  not  to  examine, 
but  to  condemn.  Nevertheless,  who  could  believe  it  ?  this  re- 
proach of  inconsistency  and  bad  faith,  addressed  then  to  the  Prot- 
estants on  their  openly  refusing  beforehand  to  accept  of  the  de- 
cisions of  Trent,  has  been  repeated  in  our  hearing,  in  our  ovrn 
day.  It  has  been  alleged  that  seeing  they  craved  that  council, 
it  argued  a  want  of  good  faith  to  persist  in  repelhng  it. 

They  might  reply,  first,  that  these  are  not  thmgs  in  which  the 
engagements  of  the  fathers  can  bind  the  children.  Next,  they 
might  ask  if  it  be  indeed  true  that  they  had  promised  obedience. 
Could  they  have  seriously  promised  it  ?  One  may  engage  to  do 
a  thing,  but  not  to  believe  a  thing.  Is  it  fair  to  suppose  that 
men  profoundly  hostile  to  such  or  such  a  doctrine,  could  engage 
to  admit  it  so  soon  as  a  council  should  decree  it  anew  ? 

Aneiv,  we  say  ;  for  one  of  the  best  proofs  that  there  could  not 
have  been  any  promise  to  obey  a  council  of  this  sort  is,  that  the 
greater  number  of  the  doctrines  then  denied,  had  been  solemnly 
admitted  by  councils  quite  of  the  same  kind.  Transubstantia- 
tion,  with  all  that  is  attached  to  it,  had  been  definitively  voted  as 
true  under  Innocent  III.,  at  the  fourth  council  of  Lateran.  The 
depriving  the  laity  of  the  cup  had  been  confirmed  at  Constance, 
in  1414  ;  and  the  number  of  sacraments  fixed  at  seven,  at 
Florence,  in  1438.  Could  it  possibly  have  been  hoped  that 
all  these  decisions,  when  corroborated  by  time,  would  be  an- 
nulled by  a  court  that  was  to  meet  with  the  same  views  and 
mider  the  same  influences?  What,  then,  did  the  Protestants 
mean,  or  rather,  what  had  they  wanted  when  they  asked  for  a 
council  ? 

Evidently  they  had  formed  to  themselves  no  clear  idea  either  of 
the  thing  itself,  or  of  the  means  by  which  it  was  to  be  accomplished. 
Every  epoch  has  its  own  fixed  idea ;  every  minority  is  naturally 
led  to  take  advantage  of  that  idea.  Luther  had  found  the  word 
council  in  all  men's  mouths,  and  the  desire  for  a  council  in  all 
men's  minds,  and  all  their  hearts ;  he  forthwith  laid  hold  of  it. 
Shall  we  suppose  that  he  really  shared  in  all  the  illusions  of 
which  other  men  were  the  dupes  with  respect  to  that  alleged 
remedy  for  all  the  Church's  ills  ?  Perhaps  he  might ;  but  it  was 
rather  from  the  need  he  felt  of  emboldening  himself  in  his  au- 
dacity, by  indulging  the  vague  prospect  of  an  authority  which 
should  pronounce  in  the  matter.  Even  Luther  had  trembled, 
and  had  trembled  long,  before  raising  the  standard.  "  No  one 
can  know,"  he  wrote  long  afterwards,  "  what  my  heart  sufiered 
those  two  first  years,  or  in  what  depression,  in  what  despair,  I 


Chap.  II.  1545.  DOCTRINE   OF    INFALLIBILITY.  29 

may  say,  I  was  often  plunged.  Even  at  this  day,  the  pope's 
splendour  and  majesty  sometimes  dazzle  me,  and  it  is  with 
trembling  that  1  attack  him."  "  Oh,  how  much  pains  it  cost 
me,"  he  wrote  in  1521,  to  the  Augustinians  of  Wittemberg,  "  to 
justify  me  to  myself  for  having  alone  ventured  to  rise  against  the 
pope  I  How  often  did  I  in  bitterness  of  soul  oppose  to  myself 
that  argument  of  the  papists — Art  thou  alone  wise  ?  Can  all 
besides  have  been  deceiving  themselves,  and  been  deceived  lor 
so  long  ?"  This  responsibility  frightened  him.  He  felt  that,  at 
any  price,  he  must  have  something  behind  which  to  shelter 
himself. 

But  he  had  traced  the  ideal  to  himself  of  that  council  amid 
which  he  was  to  make  his  audacity  disappear  ;  he  intended  it  to 
be  "  free  and  Christian  ;"  he  meant,  above  all,  that  people  should 
proceed  on  an  engagement  to  judge  only  according  to  Scripture. 
There  lay  the  illusion  ;  there  began  the  impossible.  To  propose 
shutting  out  Rome  from  the  arsenal  of  tradition,  was  to  require 
that  she  should  lay  down  all  pretensions  to  the  primacy,  that  she 
should  cease  to  be  the  Church,  so  as  to  be  no  more  than  ci  church, 
the  sister,  the  fellow  of  those  new  churches,  born  but  as  yester- 
day according  to  her,  and  whose  very  existence,  according  to 
her,  was  no  better  than  a  permanent  crime.  In  brief,  it  was  to 
require  that  Rome  should  connnence  hy  embracing,  if  not  the 
Reformation,  at  least  the  fundamental  principle  of  the  Reforma- 
tion. 

But  if  the  one  party  erred  in  misplacing  the  question,  or,  to 
speak  more  correctly,  in  not  perceiving  that  it  was  insoluble,  the 
other  party  w^ere  still  more  in  the  wrong,  in  believing  that  they 
exclusively  were  called  upon  to  decide  it.  To  have  the  council 
convened  by  the  pope,  and  to  have  it  meet  under  the  direction 
of  the  pope,  was  to  assume  as  admitted  and  incontestable  the 
most  contested  of  all  the  points  in  question,  namely,  the  supremacy 
of  Rome.  This  was  the  vast  and  vicious  circle  in  which  Europe 
was  to  be  driven  about  for  twenty  years. 

All  this,  however,  leads  to  an  important  conclusion,  which  has 
been  too  much  forgotten  :  that  the  doctrine  of  the  Church's  in- 
fallibility, so  boldly  advanced  in  our  times  by  the  Romish  doctors 
as  the  basis  of  the  whole  edifice,  was  at  that  time,  we  do  not  say 
unknown,  but  certainly  very  far  from  being  held  so  rigorously 
as  it  has  been  since.  Had  it  been  a  positive  tenet  that  Rome 
could  change  nothing,  absolutely  nothing,  of  aught  she  had  once 
decided  in  points  of  doctrine,  it  is  evident  that  the  idea  of  an  ap- 
peal from  her,  in  the  matter  of  dogmas,  to  a  future  council,  never 
could  have  entered  any  one's  head,  and  no  more  that  of  Luther 
than  of  any  one  else.     To  whom  could  such  a  thought  suggest 


30  HISTORY   OF    THE    COUNCIL    OF    TRENT.  Book  I. 

itself  at  the  present  day  ?  What  Protestant  would  now  dream  of 
asking  Rome  to  change  or  even  to  modify  her  creed  on  a  single 
point  ?  If,  therefore,  there  Avere  demands  of  this  sort  in  the  six- 
teenth centuiy,  and  if  such  demands  could  be  preferred  without 
its  being  felt  that  what  was  asked  was  an  impossibility — what, 
we  repeat,  is  the  inevitable  conclusion,  but  that  the  Church's 
infallibility  was  not  yet  a  formal  dogma,  and  the  pope's  still  less 
so  ?     Of  this  we  shall  hereafter  have  proofs  of  another  kind. 

When  the  Lutherans,  in  protesting  against  all  that  was  to  be 
done  at  Trent,  craved  an  indefinite  prolongation  for  the  truce 
granted  until  the  opening  of  the  council,  the  emperor  replied, 
that  it  did  not  belong  to  him  to  withdraw  them  from  whatever 
might  be  the  judgment  of  that  supreme  tribunal.  His  proper 
part  would  be  to  attack  them  as  heretics,  solemnly  condemned, 
rather  than  as  his  own  proper  enemies  ;  all  he  desired  was,  that 
the  condemnation  might  be  delayed  until  the  state  of  his  afi'airs 
should  admit  of  his  giving  effect  to  it.  On  this  side,  therefore, 
he  was  well  content  that  there  should  be  no  precipitation.  But, 
on  the  other,  numerous  embarrassments  were  accumulating. 
Though  in  no  haste,  for  the  moment,  to  see  sentence  pronounced 
on  the  Reformed  in  general,  still  there  was  one  individual  who 
gave  him  much  disquiet,  and  of  whom  he  was  eager  to  be  rid. 
This  was  Hermann  von  Meurs,  Archbishop  of  Cologne.  A  se- 
cret partisan  of  Luther,  he  had  introduced  into  his  diocese  a  cer- 
tain number  of  reforms,  at  first  disciplinary,  then,  by  little  and 
httle,  some  that  touched  more  or  less  on  doctrine.  The  defec- 
tion of  Cologne  would  have  been  a  terrible  blow,  and  the  move- 
ment that  had  commenced  required  to  be  checked  at  any  cost. 
So  intent  was  Charles  V,  upon  this  being  done,  that  he  forgot 
that  a  council  was  expected,  nay,  he  seemed  to  forget  even  that 
there  Avas  a  pope.  It  was  before  himself,  the  emperor,  that  he 
caused  the  archbishop  to  be  summoned,  nor  did  he  even  speak 
of  delivering  him  afterwards  to  the  judgment  of  the  Church. 
From  the  council  not  having  yet  done  anything,  he  seemed  to 
conclude  that  all  questions  remained  untouched,  and  that  it  re- 
mained for  him  to  determine  the  grounds  on  which  Hermann 
was  to  be  condemned.  Once  more,  accordingly,  he  appointed  a 
public  conference  to  be  held,  of  certain  doctors  of  both  parties, 
and  even  went  so  far  as  to  give  instructions  for  an  abstract  of 
the  discussion  being  laid  before  the  diet  the  following  year. 
This  was  a  plain  enough  intimation,  that  in  the  case  in  hand 
he  was  to  make  the  diet  serve  as  council.  As  for  the  pope, 
he  was  entirely  left  out  of  view. 

Paul  said  nothing,  and  contented  himself  with  summoning  the 
archbishop  also.     He  devoured  the  afiiront  in  secret ;  but  the 


Chap.  11.  1515.  AFFAIRS   OF    COLOGNE.  31 

council  narrowly  escaped  being  di.ssolved  by  it.     The  fifteen  or 
twenty  bishops  who  happened  to  be  then  at  Trent,  a.sked  them- 
selves what  they  had  come  there  for,  if  the  emperor  employed 
himself  in  summoning  prelates,  drawing  up  articles  of  faith,  and 
acting  as  council  and  as  pope.     These  complaints  found  their 
way  to  Rome,  where  it  was  not  easy  to  know  whether  they 
should  be  encouraged  or  suppressed.     In  itself  the  dissolving  of 
the  council  could  not  but  gratify  the  pope  ;  but  was  he  sure  that 
he  would  have  restored  to  him,  intact,  that  authority  of  which 
he  was  partially  deprived  by  the  convocation  of  a  council-gen- 
eral ?     The  future  diet  might,  at  the  voice  of  the  emperor,  act 
as  heir  to  the  rights  of  the  council,  after  it  had  expired  at  its 
birth.     The  aOair  of  Hermann  might  also  call  for  an  explana- 
tion on  the  subject  of  the  limits  of  the  two  powers,  and  the  em- 
peror seemed  little  disposed  to  have  all  his  rights  comprised  in 
that  of  sending  the  archbishop  to  the  pope.     It  was  better,  there- 
fore, for  the  latter  that  no  such  explanation  should  take  place, 
and,  in  order  to  that,  it  was  requisite  that  the  council  should 
continue  in  prospect,  even   although  it  should  remain   indefi- 
nitely thus. 

Whom  shall  we  pronounce  to  have  been  really  in  the  wrong  ? 
We  cannot  but  admit  that  it  was  the  emperor.     \Vliatever  mio-ht 
have  been  his  opinion  in  the  everlasting  dispute  about  the  supe- 
riority of  councils  over  popes,  or  of  popes  over  councils,  he  could 
not   seriously  believe  himself  authorized  to   pronounce  on  the 
orthodoxy  of  an  archbishop.     In  protesting,  the  pope  would  have 
done  no  more  than  his  duty.     His  councillors  urged  him  to  it ; 
his  silence  was  called  treason.     It  is  not  for  us  to  blame  liim  for 
having  persisted  in  it ;  but  as  we  hold  ourselves  bound  to  collect, 
in  passing,  all  that  can  throw  light  on  what  some  were  interested 
in  leaving  in  the  shade,  we  w^ould  here  remark  how  much  the 
authority  of  the  Church  and  of  its  head  w^as  still  vague,  obscure, 
and  little  understood.     It  was  rather  a  fact  than  a  right.     As  a 
fact,  the  strong  made  a  jest  of  it ;   as  a  right,  from  the  moment 
of  its  not  being  an  absolute  right  over  everything  and  everybody, 
no  man  knew  exactly  how  he  stood  with  regard  to  it.      Men 
took  the  place  of  principles.     A  strong  pope  encroached  on  the 
civil  power  ;  a  strong  prince  on  the  spiritual.     At  Rome,  a  priest 
took  away  kingdoms ;  at  Cologne,  a  prince  spoke  of  taking  away 
an  archbishopric.     And  amid  all  this,  that  council  which  Rome 
represents  to  us  as  a  citadel  built  upon  the  rock,  is  shewn  by 
all  the  histories  of  the  time,  even  the  most  Romanist  of  them, 
to  have  held  by  a  thread,  a  hair,  a  nothing — to  have  been  de- 
pendent to  an  incredible  extent  on  the  wretched  springs  of  po- 
litical intrigue  and  human  passion.     If  in  all  this,  some  see  only 


32  HISTORY    OF   THE    COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  I. 

one  farther  proof  of  the  Divine  intervention  such  as  alone,  in 
their  opinion,  could  have  removed  so  many  obstacles — do  we  not 
reverence  God  more,  when  we  say,  with  this  history  in  our  hand, 
that  it  would  have  heen  unworthy  of  Him  to  have  veiled  the 
august  action  of  the  Holy  Ghost  under  such  a  tissue  of  human 
frailty  and  sellisliness  ? 

Erelong  there  arose  a  new  difficulty. 

The  kingdom  of  Naples  had  about  a  hundred  bishops,  the 
greater  part  of  whoni  were  devoted  to  the  pope,  and  ready  to 
repair  to  the  council  as  soon  as  he  should  signify  a  wish  to  see 
them  there.  Now,  the  viceroy^  having  proposed  that  four  only 
should  go — these  four  acting  at  once  for  themselves  and  for  all 
the  rest — to  this  they  refused  to  agree.  The  matter  was  referred 
to  the  pope,  who  pronounced  them  in  the  right. 

In  the  Roman  point  of  view,  and  in  regard  to  a  council,  the 
viceroy's  idea  was  absurd.  Nothing  more  legitimate  or  more 
simple  than  to  vote  by  procuration  in  a  matter  where  a  man's 
self,  his  own  interests,  and  his  own  rights  are  concerned ;  but 
who  could  reasonably  dream  of  such  a  thing  as  to  concur  in  the 
same  way  by  procuration,  in  dogmatical  decisions,  and  in  de- 
crees viewed  beforehand  as  infallible  ?  In  fact,  it  is  in  the  body 
of  the  bishops  that  infallibility  is  supposed  to  reside.  There  could 
be  no  assurance  that  each  mandatory  would  vote  on  all  points 
as  his  constituents  would  have  done.  The  viceroy  had  never 
thought  of  this.  And  here  we  see  a  fresh  proof  of  what  we 
have  just  remarked,  as  to  the  obscurity  in  which,  in  the  six- 
teenth century,  those  grand  theories  still  fluctuated,  which  are 
represented  in  our  days  as  dating  from  the  earliest  times  of  the 
Church. 

But  was  this  theory,  obscure  to  a  statesman,  clear  at  least  to 
the  understanding  of  the  pope  ?  His  bull  makes  no  mention  of 
it.  Nevertheless,  that  would  have  been  the  best  way  to  make 
it  displease  nobody.  "  The  episcopal  body,"  he  might  have  said, 
"  cannot  err  ;  but  every  bishop  is  fallible.  Each,  therefore,  can 
represent  only  himself  To  allow  one  to  vote  for  several,  would 
be  to  trench  upon  the  infallibility  of  the  body."  As  for  repre- 
sentation by  procurators  who  should  not  be  bishops — for  this 
question  also  had  been  raised — the  pope  would  have  had  even 
less  difficulty  in  demonstrating  that  it  was  impossible.  "  It  is 
of  Divine  right,'''  he  might  have  said,  "that  a  council  should 
be  composed  of  bishops.  It  is  through  them  that  the  Holy  Ghost 
reaches  it.  We  cannot,  therefore,  make  Him  pass  through  chan- 
nels in  which  we  have  no  warranty  that  His  influences  will  not 

1  Peter  of  Toledo. 


Chap.  II.  1545.  INFALLIBILITY    BY   DELEGATION.  33 

be  tampered  with  and  altered."     Such  is  the  manner  in  "which 
one  would  reason  at  the  present  day.  ^ 

Instead  of  reasoning,  the  pope  confined  himself  to  mere  de- 
fence, and  condemned  the  idea,  not  as  absurd,  but  simply  as  bad. 
People  settled  down  generally  into  the  conviction  that  his  first, 
and  perhaps  his  only  motive,  was  the  fear  that  the  foreign  bishop.s 
might  take  advantage  of  it  to  secure  for  themselves  the  majority 
in  the  council.  Such  even  was  his  alarm  that  he  declared  every 
bishop  suspended  and  interdicted,  ipso  facto,  who  should  dare  to 
vote  by  proxy.  The  legates  thought  the  bull  so  absolute  and  so 
harsh,  that  they  durst  not  give  the  actual  text.  They  craved 
that  the  pope  would  allow  them  to  publish  the  meaning  only, 
and  even  that  with  much  softening  of  its  pungency. 

It  was  well  that  they  did  so,  for  it  was  to  happen  with  this, 
as  with  so  many  other  bulls,  which,  notwithstanding  the  severity 
of  their  terms,  and  the  pretension  of  speaking  in  the  name  of 
God,  had  accommodated  themselves  admirably  to  all  the  exi- 
gencies which  Rome  had  not  the  courage,  or  the  ability,  directly 
to  confront.  Hardly  had  it  been  received  at  Trent,  when,  be- 
hold, the  procurators  of  Albert  of  Brandenburg,  archbishop  of 
Mayence,  arrived  ;  and  although  he  could  not  have  purposely 
violated  the  pope's  order,  since  he  knew  nothing  of  it,  they  did 
not  venture  to  apply  it  to  him.  No  time  was  lost  in  assuring 
him  that  the  prohibition  could  not  concern  so  eminent  a  person 
— a  cardinal-prince — as  he  was.  An  unjust  distinction  this,  any 
way,  but  passing  strange  when  view-ed  in  the  light  of  the  coun- 
cil's Divine  mission.  The  members  are  equal — all  share  in  the 
council's  infallibility  ;  but,  if  you  are  a  mere  bishop,  it  is  lost  un- 
less you  exercise  it  yourself;  if  you  are  a  prince,  you  may  trans- 
mit and  delegate  it. 

Dispensation  followed  dispensation,  imtil  at  last  the  procura- 
tors that  were  admitted,  became  sufiiciently  numerous.  At  the 
close  of  the  council  we  find  forty-nine. 

In  the  beginning  of  May,  the  preparatory  committee  being  a 
little  more  numerous,  various  matters  of  form,  costume,  cere- 
monies, &c.,  were  regulated.  After  that,  the  opening  of  the 
council  was  spoken  of.  The  majority  thought  that  this  should 
be  done.  It  was  said  that  it  would  be  the  best  way  to  get  those 
bishops  to  come  who  desired  to  do  so,  but  who  grudged  risking  a 
fruitless  journey  ;  and,  further,  that  it  would  be  the  best  method 
also  of  putting  a  stop  to  the  liberties  in  which  Charles  Y.  was 
disposed  to  indulge.  The  legates  decided  that  they  must  wait 
for  Cardinal  Farnese,  who  was  now  papal  nuncio  at  the  court 
of  the  emperor.     But  they  did  not  fully  speak  out  their  mind. 

This  was  because  to  the  palpable  difficulties  of  their  position, 

B* 


34:  HISTORY   OF  THE   COUNCIL    OF  TRENT.  Book  I 

there  was  now  daily  added  one  or  other  of  those  which  would 
not  bear  to  be  openly  avowed,  and  yet  were  all  the  more  vexa- 
tious. The  pope  could  do  nothing  without  the  emperor ;  the 
emperor  wanted  nothing  better  than  to  dispense  with  the  pope, 
and  what  he  had  already  done  sufficiently  indicated  what  he  might 
prove  capable  of  doing,  were  the  occasion  to  ofler.  His  love  for 
the  Church,  which  he  was  constantly  parading,  did  not  prevent 
his  entering  perpetually  into  conferences  with  those  heretics  that 
were  so  heartily  cursed  by  Rome,  and  he  was  more  or  less  severe, 
more  or  less  insinuating,  just  in  proportion  as  the  Turks  avoided 
or  approached  the  Austrian  frontiers.  Sometimes  he  merely 
pressed  them  to  agree  to  the  council,  promising  for  the  rest,  that 
he  would  act  mildly ;  sometimes,  renouncing  the  idea  of  religious 
unity,  he  went  so  far  as  even  to  propose  to  them  that  it  should 
be  dissolved  immediately,  provided  they  would  sincerely  resume 
their  places  within  the  sphere  of  that  political  unity  of  which  he 
was  resolved,  above  all  things,  to  be  the  chief  Was  it  his  pur- 
pose, as  the  Protestants  generally  thought,  to  crush  them  after- 
wards ?  This  is  possible,  and  even  probable :  but  the  pope  felt 
that  this  accord,  were  it  to  last  no  more  than  two  months,  could 
only  be  at  his  expense.  It  was  necessary,  therefore,  at  any  cost, 
not  only  to  retard  it,  but  to  make  it  impossible  ;  and  for  this  it 
was  indispensable  that  war  should  commence  without  any  longer 
delay.  Cardinal  Farnese,  accordingly,  had  received  orders  to 
labour  to  that  effect  to  the  utmost  of  his  power.  On  the  pope's 
part  he  offered  twelve  thousand  men  and  live  hundred  horses. 

Let  us,  on  this  subject,  repeat  what  has  been  so  often  said, 
or  written,  on  this  strange  and  fatal  transformation  of  a  bishop 
into  a  king,  of  a  priest  into  a  warrior,  of  the  professed  father 
of  Christians  into  a  man  having  soldiers  to  furnish  by  the 
twelve  thousand,  and  Avho  offers  them — we  have  seen  for  what 
purpose  I  It  is  annoying  that  so  many  mere  declaimers  should 
have  meddled  with  the  theme,  and  that  so  many  infidels  should 
have  laid  hold  of  it  for  their  own  purposes.  So  much  virulence 
has  been  shewn  in  exclaiming  against  the  jDope  and  the  clergy, 
that  sober  people  have  almost  been  condemned  to  say  nothing 
of  a  certain  number  of  complaints,  well-founded,  no  doubt,  but 
too  often  and  too  ambitiously  repeated.  Happily,  a  truth  is  not 
the  less  a  truth  though  often  harped  upon.  Should  we  take 
advantage  of  the  occasion  to  say  again  that  the  temporal  power 
of  the  popes  has  often  been  as  odious  in  practice  as  it  is  illegiti- 
mate and  anti-Christian  in  theory — would  this  be  any  the  less 
true,  because  Raynal  and  Diderot  have  demonstrated  it  be- 
fore us  ? 

The  same  may  be  observed  with  respect  to  the  morals  of  the 


Chap.  II.   15-15.  MOllALS    OF   THE    POPES.  85 

popes  ;  Ibr  here,  too,  we  might  have  aii.  excellent  opportunity  of 
speaking  of  those  morals.  Amid  so  many  cares  to  engage  and 
distract  him,  Paul  did  not  forget  his  family.  We  have  seen  how 
he  raised  his  two  grandsons  to  the  cardinalship  ;  but  his  son  was 
still  nothing — nothing  but  a  burden  on  his  purse.  Paul  had  no 
wish  to  die  without  having  first  secured  for  him  one  of  the  first, 
if  possible  the  fir.st,  place  among  the  princes  of  Italy.  So  early 
as  in  1538,  he  had  asked  that  he  might  have  the  Dukedom  of 
Milan. ^  In  despair  of  being  able  to  obtain  this,  he  had  dreamt 
of  that  of  Parma  and  Placentia.  This  last  was  a  dependence  of 
the  domain  of  the  Church  ;  but  the  consent  of  the  emperor  also, 
as  lord-paramount,  had  to  be  obtained.  Besides,  it  was  at  the 
outset  a  question  of  no  small  gravity,  if  a  pope,  possessing  the 
usufruct  of  what  was  called  St.  Peter's  patrimony,  were  autho- 
rized to  erect  any  portion  of  it  into  an  independent  sovereignty. 
If  he  could  give  Parma  to  his  son,  he  must  also  have  had  it  in 
his  power  to  give  him  Rome.  This  M'as  the  emperor's  objection. 
In  point  of  law  he  had  nothing  to  answer  ;  but  Cardinal  Farnese 
was  not  the  man  to  leave  the  question  on  this  ground.  The 
pope's  son  was  his  father.  Now,  he  hoped,  that  once  he  were 
the  son  of  a  duke,  people  would  perhaps  forget  to  reproach  him 
with  being  the  son  of  a  bastard  and  the  grandson  of  a  pope. 
"  If  you  give  us  Parma,"  said  he  to  the  emperor,  "  you  will  see 
the  dukedom  in  the  possession  of  a  family  which  will  be  indebted 
to  you  for  its  elevation,  and  for  ever  devoted  to  you  ;  if  you  leave 
it  in  the  hands  of  the  pope,  who  shall  answer  for  Paul  III.'s  suc- 
cessor not  being  your  enemy?"  In  fine,  Octavius,  the  heir  of 
Lewis  Farnese,  had  married  Margaret,  Charles  V.'s  natural 
daughter.  Thus,  in  consenting  to  the  elevation  of  the  Farneses, 
the  emperor  secured  the  rank  and  fortune  of  his  own  daughter. 
Yet  he  yielded  only  with  reluctance.  The  pope,  in  the  begin- 
ning of  August,  solemnly  gave  Lewis  the  investiture  of  the  duke- 
dom. 

On  this  occasion  the  Protestants  were  not  the  only  persons  to 
exclaim  against  the  shamelessness  of  Paul  III.  Bitter  reflections 
were  cast  upon  him  throughout  all  Italy,  at  Trent,  at  Rome,  and 
even  among  the  cardinals  ;  those  even  who  were  too  much  accus- 
tomed to  the  pontifical  disorders  to  censure  them  in  the  name  of 
religion  and  morals,  not  the  less  regarded  the  success  achieved 
by  Paul  as  imprudent  and  fatal.  In  other  times  it  Avould  only 
have  been  one  scandal  in  addition  to  many  others ;  but  at  a 
moment  when  all  eyes  were  fixed  on  the  court  of  Rome,  when  a 
council  was  just  about  to  open,  when  even  those  nations  that 

'  This  fact,  denied  by  Pallavicini,  has  been  proved  from  incontestable 
documents  by  Ranke. 


36  HISTORY   OF   THE    COUNCIL  OF   TRENT.  Book  I. 

were  most  opposed  to  any  reformation  in  the  faith,  loudly  called 
for  reformation  in  the  morals  of  the  Church — Paul's  conduct  was 
that  of  a  person  out  of  his  senses  and  mad. 

For  the  Protestants  that  madness  was  a  triumph.  Such  an 
affair  as  this  told  more  against  the  pope  and  the  popedom  than 
all  the  folios  of  the  doctors  ;  they  asked  themselves  whether 
people  would  not  he  compelled  hy  seeing  him  scandalously  fal- 
lible in  so  many  things,  to  end  with  admitting  that  he  might  be 
fallible  in  all. 

And  we,  too,  ask  ourselves  the  same  thing. 

It  is  true  that  we  have  no  longer  scandals  of  such  magnitude 
to  appeal  to.  But  of  what  consequence  is  this  ?  The  theory  of 
papal  infallibility  has  undergone  no  change  since  the  faults  of  a 
Paul  III.,  or  the  orgies  of  an  Alexander  YI. ;  on  the  contrary,  it 
is  taught  at  the  present  day  with  less  reserve  and  more  generally 
than  ever.  If  the  present  pope  is  a  respectable  man,  so  much 
the  better  ;  but  he  might  not  be  so,  and  yet  not  the  less  be  pope.^ 
Nothing,  consequently,  more  illogical  than  the  ignorant  charity 
of  those  people  who  profess  not  to  understand  how  we  reproach 
the  popedom  of  the  present  day  with  the  faults  and  vices  of  the 
popedom  of  three  centuries  ago.  Whatever  changes  for  the  bet- 
ter the  court  of  Rome  may  have  effected  in  its  own  immediate 
circle,  the  question  remains,  and  will  for  ever  remain  the  same. 
Should  we  find  in  the  whole  series  of  the  popes  but  a  single  man 
decidedly  too  bad  for  reason  and  conscience  not  to  revolt  at  the 
idea  that  he  could  have  been  infallible  in  point  of  doctrine,  we 
should  be  authorized  to  refuse,  even  to  the  best,  a  privilege  which 
has  necessarily  belonged  either  to  all  or  to  none. 

What  more  curious,  on  this  subject,  than  the  embarrassment 
into  which  they  themselves  are  thrown  when  they  have  to  speak 
of  such  or  such  a  pope  among  their  predecessors  ?  It  is  the 
usual  practice,  in  official  acts,  that  the  name  of  every  bygone 
pope  should  be  followed  with  the  words  "  of  liappy  memory  ;"" 

^  "Would  the  reader  like  to  know  how  M.  le  Maistre,  in  his  book  en- 
titled Du  Pape,  tries  to  elude  this  objection?  "  At  a  time  when  court- 
esans, monsters  of  licentiousness  and  wickedness,  taking  advantage  of 
the  public  disorders,  disposed  of  all  things  at  Rome,  and  contrived  to 
place  their  sons  and  their  lovers  on  the  seat  of  St.  Peter,  I  most  ex- 
pressly deny  that  those  men  were  popes."  Very  convenient,  no  doubt; 
but  if  every  one  has  a  right  to  decide  who  have  been,  and  who  have 
not  been  popes,  to  what  does  this  lead  us?  If  there  have  been  no  law- 
ful popes  but  such  as  have  owed  nothing  to  corruption  and  to  intrigue, 
the  Church  must  then  have  remained  for  whole  ages  without  a  head. 
Much  more;  as  every  election,  even  the  best,  may  have  been  secretly 
indebted  to  some  disgraceful  motive,  it  would  follow  that  we  cannot 
be  sure  of  the  legitimacy  of  any  pope. 


Chap.  II.  1545.      PAPAL   INFALLIBILITY    IN    DISCIPLINE.  Hi 

but  as  there  are  several  to  wliorn  these  words  very  ill  appi)',  how 
do  people  think  it  is  contrived  to  avoid  openly  depriving  such 
popes  of  the   title  ?      Why,  they  are  quoted   in   notes.      Thus 
Gregory  XVI.,  in  his  encyclical  letter  oi"  1832,  having  occasion 
to  speak  of  bad  books,  mentions  first  Leo  X.,  then  Clement 
XIII.,  as  the  authors  of  certain  decrees  on  the  subject,  and  the 
words  of  Juippy  meinorif  failed  not  to  accompany  these  names ; 
but  Alexander  VI.,-  a  bull  of  whose  issuing,  under  the  title  Inter 
Multiplices,  ought  to  have  figured  in  the  first  line,  was  named 
merely  in  a  slight  reference.     There,  as  the  formula  was  not 
strictly  required,  its  omission  was  a  matter  of  no  difficulty.     And 
so,  though  to  this  man  the  heir  of  his  throne  is  obliged  to  refuse 
not  only  his  esteem,  but  even  the  hackneyed  homage  of  a  vain 
formula — yet  even  to  him,  0  pope,  under  the  penalty  of  reduc- 
ing yourself  to  nothing,  you  are  compelled  to  say  to  his  face, 
that  the  Holy  Ghost  was  in  him.     That  mind  teeming  with  so 
many  infamous  ideas,  had  only  to  wish  it,  in  order  to  its  being 
put  into  a  condition  for  sounding  the  most  unfathomable  mys- 
teries Avithout  a  chance  of  error.     That  hand,   which  was  so 
skilled  in  the  management  of  poisons,  it  depended  only  on  him- 
self to  employ  in  tracing  lines  as  holy,  as  venerable,  as  infal- 
lible as  those  of  a  St.  Paul  or  a  St.  John.     That  body  rendered 
impure  by  every  vice — but  no  ;  you  would  not  dare  to  do  so. 
You  would  find  it  hard  to  say  whether  it  would  be  most  odious 
or  most  absurd.     And  yet,  if  you  recoil,  all  is  lost.     The  cause 
of  Borgia  is  identified  with  yours.    On  the  pontiff's  throne  every 
stain  is  indelible. 

Are  those  Roman  Catliolics  who  reject  the  doctrine  of  the 
pope's  infallibility  in-  a  better  position  than  others  for  declining 
our  conclusions  ?  W^e  shall  elsewhere  examine  whether  it  be 
true  that  a  man  can  be  a  Roman  Catholic  without  belie vinsf  in 
that  infallibility,  and  whether  he  has  only  to  deny  it,  in  order  to 
escape  from  the  difficulties  which  it  involves.  It  is  incontestably 
an  article  of  faith  for  a  great  part  of  their  Church,  for  those 
countries  that  have  the  reputation  of  being  most  Roman  Catholic, 
for  Italy,  for  Rome,  for  the  cardinals,  for  the  pope,  inasmuch  as 
we  are  not  aware  that  the  popes  of  our  age  have  ever  withdrawn 
the  decrees  in  which  so  many  bygone  popes  openly  arrogate  that 
privilege.  As  for  those  persons  who  would  say,  '  We  don't  believe 
in  it,  your  objections  do  not  affect  us,'  we  might  always  prove 
to  them  that  in  refusing  to  answer  those  objections,  they  only 
make  them  recoil  with  augmented  force — upon  whom  ?  Why, 
upon  the  pope  and  upon  those  whom  the  pope  regards  as  his  best, 

*  Felicia  recordationis  predecessor  noster. 
'  "  A  great  rogue,"  says  De  Maistre. 


38  HISTORY   OF  THE    COUNCIL   OF    TRENT,  Book.  I. 

indeed  as  his  only  true  friends.  It  is  Imown  that  Home  would 
never  listen  for  a  moment  to  the  middle  terms,  imagined  by 
certain  Romanists,  for  the  purpose  of  getting  rid  of  the  papal 
infallibility,  without  having  the  air  of  denying  it.  Jansenius 
having  said  that  "  the  Holy  See  sometimes  condemns  a  doctrine 
solely  for  the  sake  of  peace,  without  thereby  meaning  to  declare 
it  false,"  his  assertion  was  formally  reproved  by  Clement  YIII. 

As  for  those  even  who,  while  they  admit  the  pope's  infalli- 
bility in  matters  of  doctrine,  think  to  render  that  position  more 
tenable  by  denying  that  he  is  infallible  in  point  of  discipline — 
we  might  prove  to  them  also,  that  this  denial  has  never  had  the 
consent  of  Rome.  The  Church  cannot  err,  says  the  Hoinan 
Catechism}  either  in  the  faith,  or  in  the  rule  of  manners.  In 
that  same  encyclical  letter  of  1832:  "It  would,"  wrote  the 
pope,  ''he  criminal'^  and  altogether  contrary  to  the  respect 
due  to  the  laws  of  the  Church,  to  carp  at  the  disci'pline  which 
it  has  establislieciy  Shall  it  be  said  that  the  pope,  in  this 
passage,  seems  rather  to  ordain  respect  for  established  discipline 
than  belief  in  its  infallibility  in  general  ?  Let  us  hear  :  "  As  it 
is  certain,"  he  goes  on  to  say,  "  to  use  the  words  of  the  Fathers 
of  the  Council  of  Trent,  in  their  thirteenth  session,  that  the 
Church  has  been  taught  by  Jesus  Christ  and  His  apostles,  that 
she  is  under  the  constant  teaching  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  it  is  alto- 
gether absurd  to  moot  the  idea  of  a  restoration,  of  a  regenera- 
tion— as  if  she  could  be  thought  capable  of  falling."  Behold 
discipline  put  positively  under  the  safeguard  of  the  general  infal- 
libility admitted  by  the  Council  of  Trent ;  and  as  the  pope,  in 
that  document,  puts  no  difference  betwixt  the  laws  of  the  Church 
and  the  laws  of  the  popes,  as,  moreover,  discipline  is  the  M'ork 
of  the  popes  much  more  than  it  is  the  work  of  the  Church,  all 
that  he  has  said  of  the  Church  he  has  virtually  said  of  the 
popes ;  to  them,  as  well  as  to  the  Church  assigning  that  disci- 
plinary infallibility  quite  as  much  as  the  infallibility  in  matters 
of  faith.  Deny  it ;  say  that  it  is  a  mistake,  that  you  have  only 
to  make  the  same  objections  as  ours  on  that  point — all  well  I 
But  remember,  let  us  once  more  be  allowed  to  say,  that  you 
then  send  them  back  more  strong,  more  direct,  more  crushing — 
to  whom  ?  To  the  pope,  to  the  head  of  your  Church,  to  all 
who,  according  to  him,  exclusively  hold  the  truth. 

Of  those  last  then — and  we  have  already  said  that  their 
numbers  are  on  the  increase  in  the  Roman  Church — we  would 
ask  what  they  would  make  of  Pope  Liberius,  Avho  for  four  years 
was  an  Arian ;  of  Liberius  excommunicating  Athanasius,  the 
author  of  the  Roman  Symbol ;   of  Liberius,  to  whom  Bishop 

*  Chap.  ix.  *  Nefas  esset. 


Chap.  H.  1515.         PAPAL  INlALLiUILITV  IN  DISCIPLINE.  3^ 

Hilary  of  Poitiers,  champion  of  the  Nicene  Creed,  wrote  on  tliat 
occasion  :  "  I  anathematize  thee,  Liberius,  both  thee  and  thine. 
I  anathematize  a  second  and  a  third  time,  Liberius,  the  pre- 
varicator I" 

We  would  ask  them  what  they  make  of  Innocent  X.,  who, 
shortly  before  condemning  Jansenius,  said  :  "  Let  me  be  left  at 
peace  ;  this  is  no  business  of  mine  ;  I  am  old  ;  I  have  never 
studied  theology  ;"  which  did  not  prcA'^ent  him,  however,  from 
pronouncing,  and  leaving  others  to  teach  as  infallibly  true,  what 
he  himself  had  never  taught  but  hesitatingly. 

"We  would  ask  them  what  they  would  make  of  Innocent  XII., 
approving,  praising,  admhing  a  book,^  and  then,  on  being 
solicited  by  a  king,  and  after  two  years  of  resistance,  condemn- 
ing it  ? 

We  would  ask  them  where  infallibility  resided  when  there 
were  two,  three,  or  four  popes,  all  at  once,  a  thing  which 
happened,  not  once  or  twice  as  is  generally  thought,  but  twenty- 
four  times  ;2  where,  when  those  popes  mutually  condemned  and 
anathematized  each  other ;  where,  when  their  rights — or  their 
crimes — were  so  equally  balanced,  that  there  was  no  means  of 
distinguishing  the  true  pope  from  the  anti-pope,  and  the  direct 
chain  of  succession  from  the  violent  and  intrusive  one  ? 

We  would  ask  them — but  to  what  purpose  multiply  these 
questions  ? — one  or  a  hundred,  what  does  it  signify  ?  The 
objection  is  the  same.  And  who  might  best  multiply  these 
questions,  if  not  those  who  are  brought  into  immediate  contact 
with  Rome,  and  the  popes,  and  the  circle  around  the  popes  ? 
It  is  in  Italy,  in  fact  it  is  at  Rome,  and  in  the  palace  of  the 
popes,  that  the  idea  of  their  infallibility  must  have  had  to  en- 
counter, it  would  seem,  most  oppo.sition.  At  a  distance,  people 
see  only  the  head  of  the  Church,  the  vicar  of  Jesus  Christ.  His 
words  never  reach  them  but  in  august  phraseology  ;  he  finds  no 
difficulty  in  gaining  and  preserving  a  certain  grandeur  in  the 
popular  imagination.  Close  at  hand,  be  he  ever  so  respectable 
as  an  individual,  still  he  is  a  mere  man ;  often  all  that  is  to  be 
seen  is  a  worn-out  old  man,  a  poor  shrivelled  body,  a  sinking 
mind,  a  failing  memory,  a  master,  in  fine,  who  has  ceased  to 
see,  to  hear,  to  think,  and  who  lives  only  in  the  persons  of  his 
servants.  What  I  you  may  have  seen  this  old  man  last  night ; 
you  may  have  conversed  with  him  familiarly ;   you  may  even 

^  Fen^lon's  Maximes  des  Saints. 

=^  111  250,  336,  418,  498,  530,  686,  687,  767,  824,  855,  963,  984,  996, 
1012,  1033,  1058,  1061,  1073,  1118,  1130,  1159,  1316, 1378,  1431.  From 
the  third  to  the  fifteenth  century,  one  only  did  not  witness  a  schism, 
and  the  eleventh  saw  five. 


40  HISTORY   OF   THE   COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  1. 

have  corrected  him  in  a  mistake,  and  contradicted  him,  as  will 
sometimes  happen  in  all  the  conversations  in  the  world  ;  he 
himself  may  sometimes  have  admitted  that  you  were  in  the 
right,  and  may  have  politely  said,  '•'  Very  true — I  was  mistaken." 
And  lo,  at  the  close  of  this  colloquy,  he  may  have  dictated  some 
lines  on  questions  which  the  greatest  genius  would  only  study 
with  trembling.  Now,  these  few  lines  you  present  to  me 
as  infallible  and  sacred ;  as  a  decision  which  I  cannot  attack 
without  revolting  from  God  himself  Further,  who  knows  after 
all  whether  it  be  really  from  him  ?  Who  knows  but  that  it 
may  have  been  you,  his  counsellor,  wdio  suggested,  nay,  per- 
haps, who  dictated  the  whole  of  it  ?  Elsewhere,  ministers  are 
responsible,  and  the  prince  alone  is  irresponsible  ;  at  Rome,  in 
everything  not  political,  it  is  the  pope  alone  who  is  responsible. 
A  fallible  and  irresponsible  monarch  may,  without  compromising 
himself,  put  his  signature  to  what  is  done  in  his  name  ;  an  infal- 
lible doctor  cannot  avoid  assuming  the  responsibility  of  all  that 
he  signs.  But  those  who  direct  him  ;  those  who  prepare  his 
decrees,  those  who  put  the  pen  into  his  hand  to  sign  them  ;  those 
who  can  say,  "  Such  or  such  an  article  of  faith  was  made  by 
me" — how  can  they,  unless  indeed  they  believe  themselves  to 
be  infallible — how  can  they  seriously  teach  the  pope's  infalli- 
bility ?  Pallavicini,  our  historian,  w^as  one  of  the  very  men  who 
pushed  on  Innocent  X.,  old  and  tremulous,  to  the  condemnation 
of  Jansenius.  He  himself  has  preserved  for  us  the  details  of  the 
pope's  hesitations.  "  When  he  placed  himself,"  says  he,  "  on 
the  brink  of  the  ditch,  and  measured  in  thought  the  space  he 
had  to  clear,  he  paused,  and  could  not  he  made  to  go  farther. '' 
What  lanjruajre  I  What  a  comment  on  our  reasonings  on  the 
authority  of  the  pope  !  Ah,  however  annoying  it  may  be  to  mix 
up  a  charge  of  bad  faith  with  calm  and  serious  arguments,  how 
can  we  but  feel  convinced  that  the  folks  at  Rome,  those  who 
proclaim  most  loudly  the  pope's  infallibility,  are  certainly,  of  all 
Roman  Catholics,  those  who  believe  it  least,  and  who  can  least 
believe  it  ? 

But  why  do  we  speak  of  the  folks  at  Rome  ?  Beyond  the 
circle  of  those  who  have  an  interest  in  allowing  the  fundamental 
principle  of  ultramontanism  to  live  and  revive  to  the  utmost, 
there  is  not  a  place  in  the  world  where  the  general  body  of  pro- 
fessing Christians  is  farther  from  according  to  the  pope  any 
supernatural  and  divine  authority.  On  arriving  from  France, 
Germany,  or  Switzerland,  w^here  so  many  bow  at  the  mere 
name  of  our  Holy  FatJier  tlce  Pope,  where  those  even  who 
least  believe  in  him,  generally  speak  of  him  with  respect — one 
is  confounded  at  the  boldness  with  which  the  lowest  shopkeepers 


Chap.  II.  1545.  FAITH    IN   THE    PUPE    AT   ROME.  41 

ill  Rome,  the  moment  tlieir  tongues  are  unloosed,  express  them- 
selves with  respect  to  his  character,  his  person,  the  people  he  has 
about  him,  and  his  doings.  The  very  police,  generally  so  act- 
ive and  so  susceptible  in  matters  aflecting  the  civil  power,  are 
much  less  so  with  respect  to  the  Head  of  the  Church  and  God's 
representative.  They  make  no  long  speeches  against  his  infal- 
libility ;  they  have  never  asked  themselves  theoretically  what  it 
means,  and  whether  they  beheve  in  it ;  but  the  less  they  have 
reflected  on  it,  the  less  do  they  try,  as  so  many  Roman  Catho- 
lics do  elsewhere,  to  conceal  from  you,  and  to  conceal  from 
themselves,  that  they  cannot  believe  in  it.  And  how  could 
they  ?  With  what  powers  of  abstraction  would  they  not  need  to 
be  indued  in  order  to  their  seriously  accepting  as  infallible, 
sacred,  above  all  attack,  what  they  see  emanating  from  the 
same  source  with  the  decrees,  political,  or  others,  which  they 
may  have  attacked,  criticised,  possibly  cursed  ?  Were  you  to 
force  them  to  reason,  to  draw  conclusions,  think  you  that  you 
would  find  much  difficulty  in  wresting  from  them  the  confes- 
sion of  that  which,  without  their  being  aware  of  it,  is  really  at 
the  bottom  of  their  thoughts?^  Think  you,  to  return  to  our 
history,  that  those  who  were  so  scandahzed  at  the  decree  by 
which  Paul  III.  gave  a  dukedom  to  his  son,  could  have  been 
really  and  intimately  convinced  of  his  infallibility  in  such  or  such 
a  decree,  pubhshed  perhaps  the  same  day,  subscribed  perhaps 
with  the  same  pen,  and  on  the  same  parchment  ?  No,  we  will 
venture  to  say,  they  did  not  believe  in  it.  No  more  do  those 
Avho  are  about  the  pope  at  the  present  day  believe  in  it ;  or  if 
they  do  believe  in  it — for  it  were  too  painful  to  suppose  there 
could  be  hypocrisy  so  long  persisted  in — it  is  because  they  are 
self-blinded  ;  it  is  because  from  the  strong  feeling  they  have  of 
the  need  there  is  for  a  pope  in  order  to  their  reigning  over  peo- 
ple's consciences  in  his  name,  they  end  at  last  in  submitting 
their  own  consciences  to  him. 

Could  those  men  Avho  took  part  in  the  opening  proceedings  of 
the  council,  have  any  more  beheved  in  the  infallibility  of  coun- 
cils ?  Let  us  proceed  with  our  narrative ;  that  will  be  a 
sufficient  reply. 

^  "Rome  knows  tliis:  it  is  long  since  the  pope's  authority  bas  been 
anywhere  less  deeply  rooted  than  in  Italy.  Not  that  the  people  do  not, 
from  habit,  respect  it  in  all  that  does  not  travei-se  theiiM)wu  ideas,  or 
their  favourite  passions,  or  their  interests;  but,  above  the  people,  one 
hardly  finds  any  but  censurers  and  enemies.  Kot  only  does  nobodv 
believe  in  it,  but  they  scout  it  and  hate  it." — Lamennais,  Affaires  de 
Home. 


'■  "^CHAPTEE    III. 

~"'  (1515.) 

THE    COUNCIL    AT    LAST    OPENED.       SESSIONS    I.,    II.,    lU. 

The  Bishops  begin  to  be  impatient^ — First  Session,  13th  December, 
1545 — Formidable  task — What  Catholicism  had  been  hitherto — 
Bossuet  and  St.  Augustine — Progress  in  Religion — Reasonable  In- 
consistencies and  absurd  Logic — A  "vvise  Decree — In  whose  name 
was  it  to  be  published — Pope  and  Council — Prcesidentibus  legatis — 
Foxes — Second  Session — Protests — Were  appearances  really  saved 
— People  know  not  where  to  begin — Indecision  and  Alarm — "Day 
of  Battle!  Glorious  Day!" — Dangerous  medley — What  the  weak- 
minded  may  think — The  Queen  of  the  Virtues — Credo — Third  Ses- 
sion— An  able  General — The  Italians  at  Trent — ^Their  Oath — The 
Consent  of  the  Church. 

The  year  was  now  drawing  to  a  close.  The  bishops  were 
beginning  to  lose  patience  ;  the  legates  had  exhausted  their 
means  of  amusing  them.  It  had  even  been  found  necessary  to 
grant  some  assistance  in  money  gratifications — not  pensions,  the 
legates  would  sa)^  for  it  was  of  essential  consequence  that  the 
pope  should  never  be  obnoxious  to  the  charge  of  having  mem- 
bers of  the  council  in  his  pay.  By  and  by  people  became  less 
scrupulous. 

Cardinal  Farnese  had  returned  from  Germany,  but  without 
having  obtained  more  than  the  emperor's  consent  to  his  father's 
elevation  to  the  dukedom.  Charles  Y.  had  refused  the  ofler  of 
12,000  men;  the  news  of  an  agreement  between  him  and  the 
Lutherans  was  what  might  at  any  moment  arrive.  Then  no 
more  council ;  but  the  pope  preferred  risking  its  chances,  to  see- 
ing it  break  up  in  a  manner  so  humiliating  for  him.  Resolving, 
therefore,  to  be  beforehand,  he  begged  that  a  choice  of  one  of 
these  three  might  be  made,  the  suspension,  the  translation,  or 
the  immediate  opening  of  the  council.  Now,  the  suspension  of 
the  council  could  not  suit  the  emperor,  as  long  as  the  agreement 
with  the  Protestants  remained  unconcluded,  and  it  was  of 
importance  that  he  should  continue  to  have  it  in  his  power  to 
threaten  them,  if  not  with  the  council — for  they  had  no  great 
fear  of  it,  yet  at  least  with  the  crusade  Avhich  it  would  be  sure 
to  ordain  against  the  refractory.     No  more  did  it  suit  his  views 


V 


CHAP.  III.  1545.  OPENING    OF   THE    COUNCIL.  43 

that  the  council  should  he  transferred  to  another  place  ;  he  knew 
that  the  pope  would  never  consent  to  its  hein<^  held  in  a  town 
at  a  pfreater  distance  than  Trent,  and  Trent  was  only  too  near 
Rome.  There  remained  the  opening  ;  and  the  emperor  had 
always  less  and  less  cause  to  he  eager  lor  that.  In  the  end  he 
oflered  to  oppose  it  no  longer,  but  upon  one  condition  ;  namely, 
that  the  assembled  bishops,  at  least,  in  the  first  stages  of  their 
proceedings,  should  occupy  themselves  with  matters  of  discipline, 
should  omit  all  decision  of  doctrinal  questions,  and,  in  one  word, 
abstain  from  everything  that  might  oflend  the  Protestants. 

The  pope's  patience  was  now  exhausted.  In  asking  that  all 
cause  of  irritation  to  the  Lutherans  should  be  avoided,  Charles 
let  it  be  seen  clearly  enough,  that,  should  he  come  at  last  to  an 
accommodation  of  his  diflcrences  with  them,  he  would  no  longer 
permit  their  being  anathematized  ;  and  what  a  strange  part  then 
would  be  that  of  a  council,  forced  to  remain  mute  in  presence 
of  such  a  schism  I  AYithout  either  refusing  or  promising,  Paul 
hastened  to  send  to  the  legates,  on  the  31st  of  October,  the  order 
to  commence  on  the  second  Sunday  of  December.  In  the  bull, 
he  confined  himself  to  saying,  that  the  council  should  proceed 
"  in  full  liberty."  We  shall  see  what  was  the  real  extent  of  this 
"  full  liberty,"  promised,  and  even  ordained,  as  the  privilege  of 
the  assembly. 

'  On  the  13th  of  December,  accordingly,  twenty-five  bishops, 
clothed  in  their  pontifical  robes,  went  in  procession  to  the  cathe- 
dral church,  and  Cardinal  del  Monte,  the  first  legate,  celebrated 
mass  there.  Then,  after  a  sermon  by  Cornelio  Musso,  Bishop 
of  Bitonto,  and  an  address  composed  by  the  legates,  [the  council 
was  declared  to  be  opened,  to  the  glory  of  the  holy  andundivided 
Trinity — for  the  extirpation  of  heresies,  the  peace  and  the  union 
of  the  Church,  the  reformation  of  the  clergy  and  the  people, 
the  suppression  and  extinction  of  the  enemies  of  the  Christian 
name31  Nothing  further  was  done,  except  to  decide  that  the 
second  formal  session-  should  not  be  held  until  the  7th  of  Janu- 

^  "  Ad  laudem  et  gloriam  sancto3  et  individunS  Triuitatis — ad  extir- 
pationem  hfei*esuin,  ad  pacem  et  111110110111  Ecclesire,  ad  dcpressionem 
et  extinctionem  liostium  Cliristiani  noiniuis." 

^  [The  reader  must  hereafter  distina:uisli  between  sessions  of  the  coun- 
cil and  congregations.  The  order  of  business  in  the  council  was  fixed 
as  follows:  (1)  the  subjects  for  discussion  wore  arranged  hy  committees 
composed  of  bishops  and  doctors ;  (2)  these  subjects  were  then  debated 
in  meetings  composed  of  all  the  members,  called  technically  congrega- 
tions, in  which  all  decrees,  (fcc,  were  to  pass  b}'  a  majority  of  votes, 
reckoned,  not  by  nations  (as  at  the  council  of  Constance),  but  by 
heads;  (3)  the  resolutions  thus  adopted  were  to  be  published  and  con- 
firmed in  the  sessions,  which  were  to  be  held  operdy  in  the  cathedral, 
with  mass   and  preaching,  and   in  which  no  discussions  were   to  be 


44  HISTORY   OF    THE   COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  I. 

ary  (1546).  This  delay,  said  the  legates,  was  on  account  of  the 
Christmas  holidays ;  but  the  truth  \\aB,  that  they  had  nothing 
in  a  state  of  readiness,  and  that  nobody  knew  where  to  begin. 

The  task,  it  must  be  allowed,  which  these  few  doctors  were 
about  to  undertake,  that,  too,  under  the  burthen  of  an  immense 
responsibility,  in  the  face  of  embarrassments  and  obstacles  of  all 
sorts,  and  of  innumerable  uncertainties  and  obscurities,  was  truly 
formidable.  For  it  was  to  no  purpose  that  they  advertised  them- 
selves as  the  organs  of  the  Holy  Ghost ;  not  the  less  did  they 
feel  what  poor  weak  creatures  they  were  when  they  came  to 
handle  certain  questions.  Amid  the  labours  which  this  history 
has  cost  us,  we  have  repeatedly  forgot  at  once  our  antipathy  to 
their  pride  and  their  errors.  The  pen  has  dropt  from  our  fingers ; 
we  have  felt  that  we  could  only  pity  them  ;  we  have  thought 
they  must  have  had  punishment  enough  in  the  frightful  labours 
of  these  endless  eighteen  years.  Down  to  that  period,  in  fact, 
Roman  Catholicism  had  never  seriously  attempted  the  systematic 
arrangement  of  its  doctrines  and  its  laws.  For  more  than  a 
thousand  years,  decisions,  on  each  occasion  when  they  had  been 
promulgated,  had  hardly  touched  more  than  one  or  a  small 
number  of  points  ;  councils  and  popes  had  never  dreamt  of 
looking  beyond  the  interests,  the  perils,  and  the  desires  of  the 
passing  moment.  Let  Roman  Catholic  historians  say  what  they 
please,^  it  is  not  true  that  the  dogmatical  theology,  or  the  unity 
of  Trent,  was  that  from  which  the  Protestants  separated.  It  is 
true,  no  doubt,  in  this  sense,  that  what  was  about  to  receive  the 
force  of  decrees  at  Trent,  had  already  been,  on  the  whole,  the 
Roman  faith ;  but  to  say  that  Luther  had  had  such  a  teaching 
body  to  break  with  as  has  existed  since,  would  be  an  anachron- 
ism. The  Roman  unity  of  the  present  day  dates  from  the 
Reformation  ;  its  first  cause,  as  well  as  its  strongest  bond  of 
union,  must  be  sought  for  in  the  re-action  against  the  Reforma- 
tion. 

Dov^m  to  this  period,  then,  each  workman  had  but  brought 
his  own  stone  to  the  mass,  and,  accordingly,  it  was  not  before 
an  edifice,  requiring  repair  and  completion,  that  the  council  had 
to  set  itself  to  work,  but  only  before  a  heap  of  materials.  And 
these  materials  they  were  not  even  allowed  to  sift.  To  reject  a 
sinj^le  stone  would  have  been  to  unsettle  the  ri^ht  of  all  the  rest 
to  be  employed  in  the  edifice  ;  whether  the  builders  desired  it  or 

allowed.  It  is  clear  that  by  this  arrangement  the  pope  had  the  de- 
cisions of  the  council  entirely  in  his  hands,  as  the  committees  were 
appointed  by  the  legates  ;  and  in  counting  heads,  the  Italians  were  in 
a  majority. — Ed.] 

*  See  in  particular  Moehler's  Si/mboUsm. 


Chap.  III.  1545.  DIFFICULTIES   OF   THE    TASK.  46 

no,  it  behoved  that  all  should  be  taken  in.  But,  peihajts,  the 
plan  had  been  clearly  traced,  and  the  foundations  positively 
laid  I  Not  at  all  :  the  plan  existed  oidy  in  fragments,  and  in 
fragments  of  dillerent  proportions,  varying  with  the  diflerent 
ages  of  the  Church.  The  only  entire  plan  they  possessed  was 
that  of  the  Bible,  and  that  they  would  not  have  ;  it  was  but  too 
evident  that  they  could  not  find  places  lor  all  their  materials 
there.  They  were  about  to  pronounce  a  curse  on  all  who  had 
dared  to  take  up  that  plan  anew,  and  to  hold  to  it.  What  a  com- 
plexity I  And  well  surely  may  we  forgive  some  trepidation  ni 
those  who  had  to  disentangle  it,  and  those,  in  particular,  who 
had  to  superintend  and  direct  the  operation. 

"  Heresy,"  says  Bossuet,'  "  feeble  production  of  the  human 
mind,  can  constitute  itself  only  in  ill-assorted  pieces  ;  catholic 
truth,  proceeding  from  God,  is  perfect  from  the  outset."  How 
many  things  must  have  been  forgotten  before  a  man  durst  write 
these  words  !  "What  a  defiance  to  histoiy — to  that  of  the  first 
fifteen  centuries  of  the  Church,  to  that  of  the  council  whose 
gropings  in  the  dark  are  about  to  interrupt  our  progress  at  every 
step  I  What  I  perfection  stamped  from  the  first  those  dogmas 
which  we  behold,  one  after  another,  germinating,  growing  up, 
struggling  for  admission,  and  at  last,  but  only  at  the  close  of  six 
or  ten  centuries,  effecting  an  entrance  into  the  domain  of  the 
faith  I  Those  doctrines  were  perfect,  forsooth,  from  the  outset ; 
doctrines  which  we  shall  see  were  admitted  at  Trent  only  after 
debates  without  end,  numerous  modifications,  and  final  votes 
carried  by  a  bare  majority.  And  to  give  but  one  example,  one, 
however,  which  comprehends  all,  "  perfection  from  the  outset" 
belonged,  forsooth,  to  that  grand  fundamental  dogma,  that  in- 
fallibility, which  the  council  itself  declined  to  encounter  face  to 
face,  although  it  had  occasion  to  meet  it  at  every  step,  and  in 
which  it  has  left  the  capital  point  undecided.  Even  although 
it  had  decided  that  point,  we  should  still  have  had  to  confront 
Bossuet's  allegation  with  the  words  of  a  man  often  quoted,  but 
who  in  our  opinion  ought  to  be  quoted  oftener  still,  for  he  is 
sometimes  the  least  Roman  Catholic  of  the  Fathers.  "  With 
respect  to  scripture,"  says  he,  "  there  cannot  be  either  discussion 
or  doubt  on  what  it  evidently  teaches  ;  but  the  letters  of  bishops 
may  lawfully  be  reprehended  by  what  may  happen  to  be  the 
wiser  discourse  of  a7^^J  one  more  skilled  in  the  matter,  and  by 
the  weightier  authority  of  other  bishops,  and  by  councils."- 

^  Preface  to  "  the  Variations." 

^  "Quis  autem  nesciat  Sanctam  Scripturam  canonieam  omnibus  pos- 
terioribus  episcoporum  literis  ita  praeponi  ut  .  .  .  ;  episcoporum  au- 
tem literas  .  .  .  et  per  eermonem  forte  sapientiorem  cujudibet  in  ei  ro 


46  HISTORY    OF    THE    COUNCIL   OF    TRENT.  Boos  I, 

Here,  truly,  we  have  what  has  very  httle  resemblance  to  the 
mfallibility  of  the  Fathers.  They  might  be  reprehended  and 
set  right,  not  only  "  by  other  bishops,"  but  "  by  the  opinion 
of  one  more  skilled,"  bishop  or  not.  They  might  be  so,  espe- 
cially "  by  councils."  Augustine,  accordingly,  would  have  been 
not  a  little  surprised  to  see  them  so  often  cited,  and  himself 
among  the  number,  in  the  decrees  of  many  a  council,  as  of  the 
same  authority  with  Scripture.  "  National  or  provincial  coun- 
cils," he  goes  on  to  say,  "  ought  to  yield  Avithout  more  ado  to 
councils-general ;  but  it  often  Jiappens  tluit  councils- general  are 
themselves  amended  by  posterior  councils,  when  experience  opens 
what  was  shut,  and  makes  known  what  lay  hid."^  Change  one 
or  two  words  here,  and  you  have  one  of  the  ideas  which  the 
Homan  Catholicism  of  the  present  day  treats  with  most  indigna- 
tion,2  that  of  perfectibility  in  men's  views  of  the  faith.  Pro- 
ceeding from  God,  revelation  in  itself  is  perfect ;  delivered  to 
man,  it  is  necessarily  perfectible  in  this  sense  that  posterior 
studies  and  meditations  may  always  modify  the  manner  in  which 
it  shall  be  understood,  whether  in  its  details,  or  in  its  totalitv. 

'  ^ 

This  mobility,  with  which  Protestantism  has  been  so  often  re- 
proached, is  accepted  by  Augustine  as  one  of  the  necessities  of 
the  human  mind  ;  and  while  we  see  Protestants  themselves  com- 
plain of  it,  and  throw  themselves,  out  of  spite,  either  into  infi- 
delity, or  into  Roman  Catholicism,  the  good  bishop  of  the  fifth 
century  speaks  of  it  without  a  word  of  regret.  In  vain  would 
you  seek  to  limit  by  other  passages  the  disquieting  latitude  of 
the  above,  and  never  could  you  so  restrict  its  meaning  as  to  ad- 
mit of  St.  Augustine  having  been  a  Roman  Catholic  when  he 
wrote  it.  He  seems  to  admit,  indeed,  that  in  passing  through 
this  series  of  sifting  processes,-^  the  truth  will  become  more  and 
more  (whilst  according  to  our  apprehensions,  it  has  often  become 
less  and  less)  complete  and  pure ;  but  that  is  of  little  consequence ; 
if  such  was  his  belief  in  the  Church's  infallibilitv,  he  did  not  be- 
lieve  in  it  at  all,  and  he  was  quite  as  far  as  we  are  from  admitting, 

peritioris,  et  per  aliorum  episcoporum  gravioretn  auctoritatem ;  et  per 
concilia  licere  reprehend!." — August,  de  Bapt.,  contra  Donat.  1.  ii.  1. 

^  "  Et  ipsa  concilia  qute  per  singulas  regiones  vel  provincias  sunt, 
plenarioruni  conciliorum  auctoritate  quce  fiunt  ex  universe  orbe  sine 
uUis  jMnbagibus  cedere ;  ipsaque  plenaria  scepe  priora  posterioribus  emen- 
dari,  cum  aliquo  experimento  rerum  aperitiu*  quod  clausum  erat,  et  cog- 
noscitur  guod  latebat." — August,  de  Bapt.,  contra  Donat. 

*  See  Lameunais'  preface  to  the  second  volume  of  his  Essais  sur  V In- 
difference. 

^  Mark,  let  us  observe  in  passing,  the  omission  of  the  pope.  Had 
Augustine  assigned  to  him  we  do  not  say  infallibilit}',  but  a  simple 
doctrinal  supremacy,  how  could  he  have  left  him  out  in  this  enumera- 
tion? 


Chap.  III.  1540.  THE   ADDRESS    AND    SERMON.  47 

Avith  Bossuet,  that  the  Romish  system  of  doctrine  was  perfect 
from  the  outset.     • 

Strangle  to  say,  at  the  opening  of  this  council,  which  was  to 
he  followed  by  the  prevalence  of  the  idea  of  an  absolute  infalli- 
bility, it  Avas  rather  according  to  St.  Augustine's  view  that  the 
legates  had  composed  their  exhortation.  That  address,  bating 
certain  forms,  breathed  throughout  a  high  Christian  spirit ;  too 
high,  as  we  might  easily  demonstrate,  to  be  considered  strictly 
Roman  Catholic.  After  a  frightful  picture  of  the  corruption  of 
the  clergy — the  first  authors,  according  to  them,  of  all  the  evils 
of  the  Church,  the  legates  declared  that  the  first  thing  to  be 
done  was  to  repent  and  debase  themselves.  "  Without  this  pro- 
found sense  of  our  failings,"  they  added,  "  in  vain  shall  we  enter 
the  council,  in  vain  have  we  invoked  the  Holy  Ghost.  We  can 
not  receive  him."  Nothing  more  wise,  but  what  then  were 
they  thinking  about  ?  If  infallibility  depends,  in  however  small 
a  degree,  on  the  rehgious  and  moral  dispositions  of  those  who 
are  to  be  the  organs  of  the  Church,  to  what  council,  to  what 
pope  can  we  trust  ?  Let  a  pope  be  notoriously  immoral — we 
should  then  be  authorized  to  refuse  him  any  dogmatical  author- 
ity. And  as  for  a  council — how  shall  it  be  known  whether  a 
meeting  of  two  or  three  hundred  bishops  shall  have  presented, 
on  the  whole,  enough  of  good  individual  dispositions,  to  secure 
the  direction  of  the  decisions  of  the  majority,  by  God  himself, 
who  alone  sees  men's  hearts  ?  Nobody  remarked  this.  The  ex- 
hortation was  extremely  praised,  and  deserved  to  be  so.  We  shall 
have  here  and  there  more  than  one  example  of  these  passing  re- 
turns to  good  sense  and  the  gospel.  These  were  involuntary 
and  illogical ;  but  what  would  you  have  ?  When  people  start 
from  false  principles,  it  is  only  by  reasonmg  ill  that  they  have 
any  chance  of  being  reasonable. 

The  Bishop  of  Bitonto,  in  his  sermon,  reasoned  much  better, 
at  least  much  more  logically.  "  The  moment  is  come,"  he  said  ; 
"  God  must  speak,  and  he  will  speak."  Next,  like  the  legates, 
he  exhorted  all  the  bishops  to  repentance  and  humiliation. 
"  But,"  he  added,  "  were  you  even  to  remain  in  impenitence, 
don't  go  on  to  imagine  that  thus  you  would  have  it  in  your 
power  to  shut  the  mouth  of  God.  Happen  what  may  in  that 
respect,  the  Holy  Ghost  will  find  it  easy  to  open  yours,  and  em- 
ploy it  in  his  service."  In  other  terms  :  "If  your  hearts  are 
pure,  so  much  the  better ;  if  they  are  not,  still  the  voice  of  the 
council  will  not  the  less  be  God's  voice."  This  Avas  absurd. 
Let  us  rather  say,  it  was  impious.  But  was  it  anti-Roman 
Catholic?  duite  the  contrary.  Listen  to  Pallavicini  :  "If  the 
illumination  of  the  Holy  Ghost  can  be  looked  for  only  in  a  coun- 


48  HISTORY   OF   THE   COUNCIL  OF  TRENT.  Book  I. 

cil  of  men  inwardly  sanctified,  that  sanctity  "being  invisible  and 
uncertain,  their  authority  and  their  decisions  remain  in  like  man- 
ner uncertain."^  Cornelio  Musso's  sermon,  then,  was  only,  after 
all,  the  candid  expression  of  the  system,  on  the  strength  of  which 
the  council  was  about  to  fix  and  command  the  faith.  People, 
generally,  however,  were  shocked  at  it. 

They  w^ere  no  less  so  at  the  ultramontane  ideas  with  which 
its  author  had  interspersed  it,  with  a  garnishing,  too,  of  conceits 
and  oddities  of  all  sorts.  Even  at  Rome  people  give  him  no 
thanks  for  this  stupid  and  unseasonable  frankness.  In  an  apos- 
trophe to  the  mountains  that  rise  around  Trent,  he  called  on 
the  rocks,  the  woods,  and  the  torrents,  to  proclaim  to  the  whole 
universe,  that  all  ought  to  submit  to  the  council  ;  "  And  if  it  do 
not,"  he  added,  "one  might  say  with  reason  that  the  light  of  the 
fo'pe  hath  come  into  the  tcorld?  and  that  the  world  hath  pre- 
ferred darkness  to  light."  This  was  tantamount  to  a  plain,  and 
withal  ridiculous  avowal,  that  nothing  more  was  meant  at  Trent 
than  a  mere  consultative  commission,  an  opaque  star  receiving 
its  light  from  the  rays  of  Eome.  Pallavicini  does  not  see,  so  he 
says,  why  one  should  be  so  indignant  at  the  expression  lumen 
imjocB.  Does  not  all  the  world  know  that  iiaidce,  in  Latin,  is 
merely  an  exclamation  signifying  alas !  What  more  natural, 
then,  than  to  have  said,  "The  light,  alas  I  hath  come  into  the 
world,  and  the  world,"  &c.  ?  We  leave  our  readers  to  pronounce 
on  the  fairness  of  this  elucidation.  Were  they  even  to  admit  it, 
not  the  less  will  it  remain,  and  Pallavicini  confesses  it,  a  detest- 
able play  upon  words.  There  were  many  besides.  To  open  the 
gates  of  the  council  is  to  open  the  gates  of  heaven,  whence  was 
to  descend  the  living  water  which  shall  fill  the  whole  earth  with 
the  knowledge  of  the  Lord.  Jesus  Christ  will  be  present  there. 
How  could  he  refuse  this  favor  to  St.  Vigil,  the  vigilant  patron 
saint  of  this  blessed  city  ?  At  another  place  he  indulged  in  a 
grand  eulogy  of  the  pope,  the  emperor,  the  king  of  France,  sev- 
eral other  sovereigns,  and  also  of  the  legates  ;  but  as  for  these 
last,  it  was  their  names  and  surnames  that  furnished  matter  for 
his  praise.  Behold  the  Cardinal  del  Monte,  turning  his  heart 
and  his  eyes  toward  the  mountain  which  is  Christ ;  behold  his 
colleague  della  Santa  Croce,  Tolitian^^  and  who  now  for  a  long 
time  has  applied  himself  to  the  reformation  of  political  affairs 
among  Christians ;  behold  the  virtuous  Polus,  "  An^lus  by 
birth,  but  who  should  be  called  Angehis  rather  than  AnglusT 

"  In  fine,  seeing  the  council  is  open,  let  all  who  have  the  right, 
hasten  to  repair  to  us,  as  if  into  the  Trojan  horse''     This  last 

1  Book  V.  ch.  xviii.  -  Lumen  papje  venit  in  mundum. 

^  Poiitianzcs,  born  at  Polizio,  in  Sicily. 


Chap.  III.  1546.  PASSAGE    OF   THE    DECREE.  49 

stroke  of  eloquence  had  no  doubt  some  profound  meaning  which 
escapes  us,  and  which  we  shall  not,  like  Pallavicini,  take  the 
trouble  to  look  for.      Only,  on  reading  so  strange  a  producLioii, 
we  are  apt  to  say  to  ourselves,  that  surely  a  man  of  good  taste 
must  needs  make  great  eiibrts  before  he  can  sincerely  consent  to 
having  among  the  supreme  arbiters  of  his  faith,  one  who  was 
capable  of  thinking  and  of  writing  thus,  and  who  exercised,  nev- 
ertheless, a  very  great  influence  on  his  colleagues. ^      In  vain 
should  we  be  told,  that  "  such  was  the  taste,  such  the  eloquence, 
of  the  time.     Luther  has  done  sometimes  worse."     Not  in  the 
pulpit,  we  might  observe.     And  even  were  it  so,  what  of  that  ? 
Betwixt  a  play  upon  words  by  the  fallible  Luther,  and  those 
which  we  must  listen  to  in  an  infallible  assembly,  no  comparison 
can  be  instituted.     Luther,  by  himself,  is  nothing.     When  you 
accept  the  articles  of  his  creed,  it  is  because,  on  inquiry,  you  find 
there  are  good  reasons  for  doing  so.     If  some  are  set  ofi'  in  bad 
taste,  so  much  the  worse  ;  but  that  proves  nothing  either  way. 
With  infallibility  every  thing  becomes  serious.     With  the  man 
who  commands  you  to  believe,  the  smallest  mental  aberration, 
be  the  object  of  it  what  it  may,  is  an  argument  against  the  au- 
thority which  he  arrogates  to  himself     He  who  makes  bold  to 
build  for  eternity,  more  or  less  compromises  his  work  by  every 
imperfection  in  the  materials. 

Most  of  the  bishops  had  been  displeased  by  the  adjournment 
to  the  7th  of  January.  After  waiting  so  long,  they  thought  it 
singular  that  no  plan  for  the  preparation  of  the  questions  had 
ever  been  dreamt  of  It  was  proposed  to  them,  indeed,  to  begin 
with  a  decree  on  the  private  conduct  of  members  of  the  council. 
This  they  thought  a  good  idea,  but  they  also  thought  that  it  was 
no  great  matter  for  the  occupation  of  a  whole  month,  all  the  more 
as  they  did  not  see  to  what  they  were  next  to  apply  themselves. 
Meanwhile  the  decree^  passed  with  much  applause.  It  is  full 
of  excellent  prescriptions,  excellent  counsels  ;  and  we  may  add, 
that  from  this  time  forward,  in  what  respected  morals,  it  was 
religiously  observed.  The  Reformation  was  beginning  to  bear  its 
fruits.  The  scandalous  debaucheries  of  the  Council  of  Constance 
were  no  longer  either  permitted  or  possible  ;  a  small  part  of  what 
was  tolerated  then,  would  have  been  sufficient  now  to  deprive 
the  meeting  of  all  respect,  and  perhaps  to  compel  its  dissolution. 

•  "He  it  was  who,  on  this  theatre  of  Christendom,  had  raised  the  cur- 
tain by  pronouncing  the  opening  discourse,  and  after  that,  being  always 
emplo3'ed  on  the  gravest  deHberations,  was  no  longer  a  mere  ordinarv 
meraber:  he  was  the  right  arm  of  that  whole  body." — Pallav.  1.  viii. ' 

•  [Decretum  de  niodo  vivendi  et  a/iis  in  concilio  servandis,  passed  at 
Sess.  II.,  Jan  7,  1516.— Ed.] 

C 


60  HISTORY   OF    THE    COUNCIL   OF    TRENT.  Book  I. 

The  prelates,  accordingly,  had  no  difficulty  in  coming  to  a 
general  understanding  on  the  tenor  of  the  decree  :  but  the  next 
thing  to  be  done  \vas  to  publish  it,  and  then  their  embarrass- 
ments began.  That  of  the  first  session  had  been  drawn  up  in 
the  form  of  a  minute  :  "  Is  it  your  pleasure  that  the  holy  Coun- 
cil of  Trent  should  be  declared  opened  ?  To  which  the  prelates 
replied,  Yes  I"^  All  explanation  respecting  the  nature  and  the 
rights  of  the  assembly,  and  in  particular  of  its  attitude  with  re- 
gard to  the  pope,  had  thus  been  avoided.  But.  now  there  was 
required  a  formal  decree  and  a  preamble.  In  whose  name  were 
they  to  speak  ?  In  whose  name  was  the  decree  to  be  publish- 
ed ?  In  the  name  of  the  council  alone,  or  of  the  pope  alone,  or 
of  the  pope  and  the  council,  or  the  council  and  the  pope  ?  for  the 
very  order  in  which  they  were  to  be  put,  in  case  of  their  both 
being  introduced,  was  a  matter  of  moment.  Whatever  form 
they  might  adopt,  a  question  had  always  to  be  determined,  in 
one  sense  or  other,  which  it  was  felt  could  not  be  determined 
without  slaying  the  council.  As  for  that  assembly's  being  supe- 
rior to  the  pope,  this  was  what  Paul  had  said  he  would  rather 
die  than  proclaim.  Then,  as  for  the  pope's  being  superior  to  the 
council,  it  was  known  that  a  decree  to  that  effect  would  brins: 
down  upon  its  authors  the  most  dangerous  protestations  from 
Germany  and  from  France.  Three  centuries  have  past,  and  the 
question  still  remains  undecided.  That  which  you  can  read  at 
the  head  of  all  constitutions,  even  the  most  incomplete,  to  wit, 
^vhat  is  the  source  of  authority,  here  you  find  an  infallible 
Church  has  never  yet  succeeded  in  putting  at  the  head  of  hers. 
She  who  has  decided  so  many  mysterious,  so  many  useless  points  ; 
she  in  whose  name  so  many  victims  have  been  burned  alive  for 
having  desired  to  remain  free  in  the  midst  of  misery,  behold  her 
permitting  free  opinions — on  what  ?  On  the  question  on  which 
it  would  have  been  most  natural,  and  was  most  necessary,  that 
she  should  pronounce  a  clear  decision.^  One  feels  curious  to  know 
what  would  be  the  reply  of  a  Roman  doctor  to  an  honest  peas- 
ant of  his  Church,  who,  happening  to  hear  of  these  details,  should 
come  to  him  with  the  simple  question,    "  Instead  of  puzzling  it- 

^  Placetne  vobis? — Respondenint :  Placet. 

'  "  Wliat  are  we  to  think  of  that  famous  session  where  the  Council 
of  Constance  declares  itself  superior  to  the  pope  ?  The  answer  is  easy: 
the  assembly  talked  nonsense Men  of  fine  genius  in  the  follow- 
ing centuries  reasoned  no  better." — Jos.  de  Maistre,  Du  Pape. 

Those  men  of  fine  genius  who  talked  nonsense  were  Bossuet,  Arnold, 
Pascal. 

"  And  if  certain  persons  persist,"  continues  the  author,  "we,  instead 
of  laughing  at  that  session  alone,  will  laugh  at  that  session,  and  at  all 
who  refuse  to  laugh  at  it." — Unity!  unity! 


Chap.  HI.  15-16.  WHAT   SHOULD   UE   ITS   FORM?  61 

self  SO  much  as  to  the  particular  rnaiiucr  in  which  it  was  to 
word  its  decree,  why  did  not  this  council,  of  which  it  had  been 
said  that  God  would  speak  by  its  mouth,  begin  by  deciding,  once 
for  all.  the  question  itself?"  Ah,  poor  peasant  I  it  Avas  just  be- 
cause saying  and  believing  are  diilerent  things.  It  is  easy  to 
say  we  are  infallible,  and  to  give  ourselves  the  air  of  being  so, 
as  long  as  all  we  liave  to  do  is  to  condemn,  and  when  we  are 
sure  of  being  agreed  ;  but  to  believe  ourselves  infallible,  and  se- 
riously to  act  as  such,  when  well  aware  that  we  cannot  speak 
without  raising  in  the  very  bosom  of  the  Church  contentions  1  hat 
M'ould  rend  it  asunder,  this  is  a  very  diflenent  thing,  and  then 
the  very  boldest  men  recoil.  But  we  shall  have  again  to  return 
to  this. 

The  pope  had  thought  of  the  matter.  A  commission  of  car- 
dinals, recently  created  by  him  for  directing,  from  Rome,  the 
operations  of  the  assembly,  had  long  tried  to  find  a  formula  for 
the  decree  which  might  satisfy  all,  or,  at  least,  ofiend  none. 
They  thought  that  they  had  succeeded  at  last.  The  moat  holy 
Council  of  Trent,  legitimately  assembled  tinder  the  conduct  of 
the  Holy  Ghost,  the  three  legates  of  the  a/postolic  see  incsiding 
at  it,  decrees,^  &c.  To  the  words  most  holy  council  might  be 
added,  should  there  be  a  request  to  that  efiect,  the  words  ecu- 
menical and  genercd. 

The  majority  appeared  satisfied  ;  but  a  numerous  minority  re- 
quired, if  not  a  formal  admission  of  the  pope's  inferiority,  at  least 
a  clearer  declaration  of  the  equality  of  the  two  powers.  The 
words  prcesidentibus  legatis  might,  in  fact,  be  very  well  under- 
stood as  implying,  not  only  a  mere  presidency,  in  the  ordinary 
meaning  of  the  word,  but  an  authority  superior,  supreme,  and 
indispensable  to  the  existence  of  the  council ;  and  it  was  very 
well  known  besides,  that  such  was  the  meaning  which  the  Ital- 
ians attached  to  it.  It  was  proposed,  accordingly,  that  the  word 
(Ecumenical  should  be  superseded  by  representing  the  universal 
Church?  These  words  being  placed  before  prcesidentibns  le- 
gatis, the  presidency  of  the  legates  ceased  to  be  clearly  indicated 
as  indispensable  to  the  legitimacy  of  the  council.  An  Italian 
called  those  members /ar^i'^  who  supported  such  an  alteration  ; 
and,  to  say  the  truth,  amid  these  contests  in  which  no  one  spoke 
out  all  he  thought,  that  was  an  epithet  which  the  members 
might,  in  all  justice,  have  given  each  other  every  day.^      The 

^  Sacro  sancta  Tridentina  Synodus,  in  Spiritu  sancto  legitime  congre- 
gata,  in  ea  prsesidentibus  tribus  apostolicje  sedis  legatis. 
^  Ecclesiam  universalem  representans. 
^    Vulpeculas.     De  Vargas's  Memoirs. 
*  "There  happened  on  this  occasion  what  commonly  makes  endless 


52  HISTORY   OF    THE    COUNCIL    OF    TRENT.  Book  L 

majority,  however,  were  inclined  to  grant,  if  not  the  thing,  at 
least  the  words  ;  but,  in  consequence  of  orders  from  the  pope,  the 
legates  made  such  a  work  about  it,  that  this  was  refused.  More 
than  that,  the  words  (Ecumenical  and  genercd  were  deleted. 
"  What  purpose  could  they  serve  ?"  said  the  legates.  "  Is  it  not 
sufficiently  stated,  in  the  pope's  bull,  that  this  council  is  obcu- 
menical  and  general?"  In  a  word,  the  first  hankering  for  in- 
dependence made  them  withdraw  even  the  concessions  already 
made.  AYe  find  these  words,  however,  reoccur  in  the  decree  of 
the  third  session. 

The  opposite  party  did  not  hold  themselves  defeated.  On 
the  7th  of  Januar}'',  when  the  cathredal  was  at  the  fullest,  after 
the  reading  of  the  decree,  they  repeated  their  demand,  and 
obliged  the  others  to  repeat  their  refusal. 

Now  this  public  protestation  against  a  decision  of  the  majority 
was  a  serious  matter,  especially  at  the  commencement.  It  had 
been  understood  that  all  should  proceed  as  at  the  Council  of 
Lateran,  under  Julius  II.,  that  is  to  say,  that  all  discussion 
should  be  interdicted  except  in  congregations,  or  meetings  with 
closed  doors.  The  public  assembly  or  sessio?i  was  to  be  exclu- 
sively for  the  publication  of  laws,  elaborated  and  voted  at  the 
congregations.  This  was,  in  fact,  the  only  means  of  keeping 
out  of  sight  the  divisions  that  might  exist  among  the  members, 
and  of  giving  themselves,  in  default  of  a  more  real  authority, 
that,  at  least,  of  unanimity. 

Accordingly,  in  the  following  congregation  (13th  January)  the 
legates  made  bitter  complaints.  They  were  at  no  loss  to  shew 
that  the  greatest  enemies  of  the  council  would  do  it  less  harm 
than  its  own  members,  however  little  they  might  renew  such 
scenes  in  public.  Nothing  more  true  ;  but  in  saving  appear- 
ances, why  not  also  avoid  the  reality  I  Congregations  with  shut 
doors  !  why,  we  know  almost  all  that  past.  Sarpi's  revelations, 
often  inexact,  compelled  Pallavicini  to  publish  a  mass  of  facts 
which  would  otherwise  have  remained  in  the  archives  of  the 
Vatican ;  and  the  cardinal's  corrections  have  already  furnished 
us,  and  will  yet  furnish  us,  with  more  weapons  than  the  monk's 
assertions  have  done.^     We  shall  abridge  much  ;  yet  there  is 

debates  :  the  reason  expressed  by  the  legates  was  not  that  which  touch- 
ed them  most,  so  that  to  oppose  them  with  arguments  was  to  attack 
the  shadow  and  not  the  substance.  The}'  themselves  sent  word  to  the 
pope,  that  what  had  made  them  reject  with  horror  that  denomination 
{representing  the  tmiversal  Church)  was,  that  they  thought  of  the  addi- 
tion that  had  been  made  to  it  at  Constance  and  at  Basle,  viz.,  that  the 
council  has  received  immediately  from  Jesus  Christ,  a  power  to  which  all 
dignitii,  even  that  of  the  pope  is  bound  to  suhmi.ty — Pallav.  B.  v.  eh.  ii. 
*  Pallavicini,  at  this  very  passage,  is  much  more  curious  than  Sarpi. 


Chap.  III.  1540.         PLAN    OF    OPERATIONS    DISCUSSED.  58 

not  a  discussion,  not  a  vote,  on  which  we  shall  not  have  it  in 
our  power  to  give  a  thousand  details,  and  this  will  not  be  with- 
out our  having  many  a  time  asked  ourselves,  as  we  have  already- 
done,  where  there  is  to  be  seen  any  dilierence  at  all  between  the 
deliberations  of  the  Itoly  council,  and  those  of  any  ordinary  and 
merely  human  meeting.  And  who  can  doubt  that  diflerences 
of  sentiment,  but  for  the  immense  interest  whicli  all  alike — 
Italians,  French,  and  Germans — had  in  appearing  united,  par- 
ticularly on  questions  of  doctrine,  Mould  have  been  exhibited 
with  far  more  persistency  and  noise  ? 

To  return  to  the  13th  of  January.  The  discussion  of  some 
plan  of  operations  was  looked  for,  for  it  was  said  that  the  legates 
had  been  occupied  with  layhig  its  bases,  and  were  about  to  sub- 
mit it  to  the  assembly.  Great,  then,  was  the  surprise  that  was 
felt  when  they  confined  themselves  to  simply  reminding  the 
members  of  the  three  leading  points  noted  by  the  pope  in  the 
bull  of  convocation  :  the  extirpation  of  heresies,  the  reformation 
of  discipline,  the  re-establishment  of  peace.  And  when  their 
advice  was  asked  on  the  course  that  was  to  be  pursued,  "Yours 
shall  be  ours,"  was  their  reply.  "  Reflect  and  pray  to  God." 
Excellent  advice  ;  but  unhappily  it  was  too  clear  that  the  gi-and 
object  all  the  while  was  to  gain  time.  The  legates  had  received 
no  directions  from  Rome,  and  knew  not  what  either  to  propose 
or  to  do.  Such,  as  several  bishops  said  in  the  face  of  the  whole 
assembly,  was  the  whole  secret  of  their  humble  declaration. 
Meanwhile,  against  all  but  the  unanimous  opinion  of  the  mem- 
bers, they  obtained  this  point,  that  the  council  should  not  seal 
its  decrees  and  its  letters  with  a  seal  of  its  own.  They  urged, 
•'  that  there  was  no  engraver  at  Trent  that  could  make  one.  It 
was  necessary  to  send  to  Venice ;  that  would  cause  too  long  a 
delay.  It  would  be  seen  to  afterwards."  And  nothing  more 
was  said  about  it.  The  seal  of  the  premier  legate  served  for  all. 
Even  down  to  the  smallest  matters,  the  council  was  condemned 
to  exist  only  by  and  for  the  pope. 

On  the  18th  of  January  there  w^as  the  same  silence  on  the 
part  of  the  legates,  the  same  indecision  on  the  part  of  the  as- 

la  liis  statement  of  the  reasons  alleged  against  the  titles  wliich  the 
minority  wished  to  give  the  eouneil,  "Imitate,"  he  makes  the  premier 
legate  say,  "  imitate  much  rather  the  pope,  -who,  though  entitled  to  the 
reasonable  assumption  of  the  sublimest  names,  prefers  keeping  to  the 
very  humble  title  of  servant  of  the  servants  of  God."  "Besides,"  he 
makes  others  say,  "the  emphasis  of  that  epithet  {oecumenical)  would  ill 
suit  an  assembly  composed  of  so  few  bishops,  and  so  poor  in  ambassa- 
dors. The  Lutherans  would  be  sure  to  recall  the  old  provei'h,  tliat  lit- 
tle men  arc  apt  to  stand  on  their  tiptoes" — Pallavicini,  B.  v.  eh.  vi. 
Have  we  said  anything  else  ? 


64  HISTORY   OF   TliE   COUNCIL    OF   TRENT.  Book  1. 

sembly.  The  discussion  was  opened,  but  came  to  no  result. 
The  Itahans  wanted  the  council  to  begin  with  the  settlement 
of  doctrines  ;  to  that  the  imperialists  objected  then,  as  always, 
that  the  extirpation  of  heresies  was  not  to  be  thought  of  until 
scandals  were  first  extirpated.  The  meeting  adjourned  itself  to 
the  22d,  and  then  rose. 

A  majority  now  began  to  take  shape,  but  it  was  on  the  Ger- 
man side.  Had  the  vote  been  taken  at  once,  the  matter  would 
have  been  at  an  end  ;  reforms  were  taken  up  ;  they  became  the 
grand  affair.  The  pope  was  aware  of  plans  being  in  agitation 
against  his  court,  and  against  himself  The  council  once  em- 
barked in  that  course,  what  was  he  to  do  ? — "  Make  an  inglori- 
ous surrender ;  permit  the  council,  which  he  himself  had  con- 
vened against  heresy,  to  do  him  more  harm  than  heresy  itself? 
Or  should  he  resist  ?  Was  he  to  deprive  of  all  its  credit  the  very 
assembly  whose  sole  weapon  against  heresy  was  the  public  ven- 
eration ?  Was  the  general  to  quarrel  with  his  army  at  the  mo- 
ment of  engaging  in  battle  ?  Was  he  to  renew  the  troubles  of 
Basle,  the  results  of  which  would  be  all  the  more  to  be  feared, 
inasmuch  as  the  materials  being  still  more  ready  to  catch  fire 
now  than  they  were  then,  the  smallest  of  these  sparks  might 
make  them  burst  into  a  flame  ?"i  His  whole  hope  lay  in  his 
legates,  whom  he  treated,  however,  very  ill,  for  having  so  im- 
jDrudently  left  the  decision  to  the  assembly. 

On  the  22d  of  January,  the  members  were  almost  unanimous 
in  requiring  the  reforms  should  be  taken  up  first,  and  doctrines 
afterwards.  This  compelled  the  legates  to  raise  the  mask,  and 
to  state  plainly  that  such  were  not  the  views  of  the  pope.  The 
council  might  well  have  asked  why  the  pope  had  not  explained 
himself  sooner  ;  they  did  not  care,  however,  to  allow  themselves 
to  be  drawn  off  to  that  ground.  But  said  the  legates,  "Has 
not  the  emperor  spoken  of  convening  a  council  himself  for  the 
purpose  of  putting  an  end  to  the  present  disputes  ?  And  who 
will  keep  him  from  doing  so,  should  Ave  put  off  questions  of 
faith  ?■'  This  argument  prevailed.  Indirectly  charged  with 
delaying  doctrinal  questions  for  the  mere  purpose  of  giving  the 
emperor  an  opportunity  of  brealdng  with  the  pope,  the  imperial- 
ists dared  not  hold  out  any  longer.  "  Day  of  battle  I  glorious 
day  for  the  apostolic  see  I"  wrote  the  legates  in  transmitting  to 
Cardinal  Farnese  the  details  of  their  victory.  Such,  in  their 
view,  had  been  the  greatness  of  the  danger. 

And  yet  this  victory  was  not  complete.  It  had  been  found 
necessary  to  yield  so  far  as  that  the  questions  of  discipline  should 
be  mingled,  as  much  as  possible,  with  the  doctrinal  ones.     The 

^  Pallav.  B.  V.  ch.  viii. 


Chap.  HI.  154G.       MINGLING    OF  DISCIPLINE   AND   DOCTRINE.  66 

bishops  recollected  Constance  and  Pisa,  where,  on  the  latter 
beino^  decided,  the  councils  had  been  dismissed  without  havinf^ 
had  it  in  their  power  to  occupy  themselves  with  the  former. 
They  had  taken  their  precautionary  measures,  it  remained  for 
the  p3pe  also  to  take  his. 

To  the  dangers  which  he  suspected,  there  was  added  one 
which  he  hardly  dreamt  of,  but  which  time  has  made  evident. 
We  refer  to  the  intermingling  of  disciplinary  and  doctrinal  de- 
crees. For  those  who  regard  both  as  infalliable  there  is  no- 
thing untoward  in  this,  but  as  respects  those  who  do  not  believe 
in  disciplinary  infallibility,  it  supplies  a  serious  argument  against 
them.  In  that  case,  in  fact,  what  an  odd  medley  is  presented 
by  the  decrees  of  the  council  I  Here  we  find  one  on  discipline  : 
that  is  fallible.  Next  comes  one  on  doctrine  :  this  is  infallible. 
They  stand  side  by  side,  lie  parallel,  and  are  closely  coiniected 
together — what  of  that  I  The  one  is  the  work  of  man,  the 
other  is  the  work  of  God.  Tliis  you  must  receive  at  the  peril 
of  your  salvation  ;  that  you  may  reject.  And  let  us  not  forget 
there  are  those — we  shall  see  several — in  which  some  articles 
are  doctrinal,  others  disciplinary.  In  that  case  behold  the  falli- 
ble and  the  infallible,  the  mutable  and  the  immutable,  mingled, 
interlaced,  and  running  into  each  other,  in  the  same  chapter,  on 
the  same  page,  sometimes  even  in  the  same  phrase.  No,  there 
is  no  middle  course  I  Either  be  frankly  ultramontane,  and  we 
shall  know  with  whom  we  have  to  do  ;  or  admit,  that  if  a  coun- 
cil is  fallible  in  one  of  the  halves  of  a  chapter,  of  a  page,  of  a 
phrase,  it  cannot  be  infallible  in  the  other. 

The  third  session,  fixed  for  the  4th  of  February,  was  now  ap- 
proaching, and  yet  nothing,  absolutely  nothing  to  be  done  at  it. 
Had  they  set  to  work  immediately,  it  was  impossible  to  have 
any  decree  sufficiently  matured  for  that  date.  The  bishops  mur- 
mured ;  forty  had  now  arrived,  and  though  that  was  but  a  small 
number  for  a  council,  yet  they  were  no  longer  the  small  body 
which  it  had  been  found  possible  to  keep  so  long  idle.  Already, 
to  prevent  the  irregularities  that  were  dreaded,  the  Fathers, 
says  Pallavicini,^  "had  been  adroitly  separated  into  three  sev- 
eral congregations,  which  were  to  meet  at  the  houses  of  the 
three  legates  respectively.  The  ajJjJarcnt  rea-son  adduced  by 
the  legates  for  this  was,  that  in  three  different  places  more  busi- 
ness would  be  done  in  less  time.  .  .  .  But  in  their  own  secret 
hearts,  they  proposed  to  themselves  three  other  advantages. 
One  was  that  of  being  better  able  to  lead  the  whole  body,  when 
weakened  by  division,  into  three  separate  brooks,  instead  of  be- 
ing allowed  to  gather  into  a  river.     The  other  ....   ire,  ire," 

^  B.  V.  ch.  vii. 


56  HISTORY   OF   THE    COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  I. 

Here  we  find  a  Jesui^  frank  enough.  He  adds,  accordingly, 
that  for  some  iceah  minds,  this  might  seem  to  furnish  arms  to 
the  enemies  of  the  council's  authority.  "VYe  confess  we  are  such 
weak-minded  persons,  who  have  the  unlucky  humour  of  calling 
intrigue — intrigue  ;  and  thinking  that  where  there  is  intrigue, 
there  the  Holy  Ghost  is  not.  "  But,"  says  the  author,  "  is  there 
intrigue,  then,  in  the  pope's  desiring  to  preserve  intact  that  sov- 
ereign authority,  of  which  God  has  made  him  the  depositary  ? 
And  if  such  a  preservation  is  to  he  blamed  because  it  is  at  the 
same  time  agreeable  to  himself,  we  must  blame  the  man  also 
who  eats  to  live,  because  no  more  can  one  eat  without  gratify- 
ing one  of  the  senses.  .  .  .  And,  as  for  his  ministers,  the  more 
address  they  showed  in  their  efforts,  the  more  praise  do  they  de- 
serve ;  for  prudence,  that  queen  of  the  moral  virtues,  consists  pre- 
cisely in  the  art  of  attaining  an  honest  end  by  using  only  allowa- 
ble means."  True  ;  it  only  remains  that  we  be  sure  that  all 
that  is  allowable  in  politics,  is  allowable  also  in  a  council,  and 
that  even  policy  would  sanction  all  that  the  legates  had  to  do. 
This  we  shall  have  occasion  more  than  once  to  ask  themselves ; 
and  the  cries  of  their  conscience,  their  remonstrances  to  the  pope, 
and  their  confessions  to  intimate  friends,  will  sufficiently  prove 
to  us,  either  that  they  did  not  consider  prudence  to  be  tlie  queen 
of  the  virtues,  or  that,  even  in  their  own  eyes,  they  had  been 
something  else  than  prudent. 

Already,  notwithstanding  its  having  been  decided  that  doc- 
trines and  discipline  were  to  be  taken  up  simultaneously,  they 
cleverly  contrived  to  prevent  this  plan  from  being  indicated  in  a 
decree.  "  To  what  purpose  would  you  write  it  out  ?"  said  they. 
"  Is  it  not  enough  that  you  follow  it  ?"  Nothing  bemg  in  readi- 
ness for  the  session,  it  was  proposed  that  it  should  be  devoted  to 
the  solemn  reading  and  acceptation  of  the  confession  of  faith, 
called  the  Athanasian  Creed,  forming  part  of  the  canon  of  the 
mass.  Several  councils,  it  was  said,  had  done  this.  It  was 
like  arming  themselves  with  a  buckler  before  marching  to  the 
attack  of  heresies.  Several  had,  in  fact,  placed  it  at  the  head 
of  their  decrees  ;  but  there  never  had  been  an  instance  of  a  ses- 
sion having  been  devoted  to  it,  especially  after  having  had  two 
months  to  prepare  for  something  else.  Besides,  the  singularity 
of  proceeding  with  great  pomp,  to  read  what  people  could  hear 
every  day  at  all  the  masses,  it  was  objected  that  that  creed  was 
not  attacked  by  the  Protestants,  and  furnished  no  arms  against 
them,  if,  on  the  contrary,  it  was  not  even  in  their  hands,  a 
weapon  rather  against  the  Church.  In  fact,  the  circumstance 
of  a  creed  having  been  admitted  at  Nice  as  complete,  having 
been  maintained  afterwards  without  addition,  and  being  still  read 


Chap.  III.  154C.  ITALY  ALWAYS   IN   MAJORITY.  67 

daily  in  all  the  churches  of  Catholicity,  containing  nothing,  or 
almost  nothing  of  Avhat  was  attacked  by  the  Reiormation,  Avas 
one  the  bearing  of  which  could  hardly  be  dissembled.  But  what 
was  objected  most,  was  that,  after  having  promised  to  bring 
forward  discipline  and  doctrine  abreast,  they  should  commence 
with  doctrine  alone. 

Here,  as  in  all  cases,  the  legates  carried  their  point.  A  pre- 
amble was  drawn  up,  in  which  it  was  said  that  the  Fathers, 
under  a  conviction  of  the  immensity  of  their  task,  felt  how  need- 
ful it  was  for  them  mutually  to  exhort  each  other  to  take,  ac- 
cording to  the  saying  of  an  apostle,  "  the  shield  of  faith,  the  hel- 
met of  salvation,  and  the  sword  of  the  spirit  ?"  Consequently, 
they  thought  they  could  do  nothing  better  than  repeat,  word  lor 
word  {totidcm  verbis),  that  ancient  and  venerable  symbol,  "  by 
means  of  which  alone,  on  some  occasions,  infidels  have  been  con- 
verted and  heretics  overu-helmecir  A  piece  of  pure  fanfaronade 
at  that  moment,  seeing  that  the  heretics  of  the  day  declared  their 
belief  in  it. 

The  third  session  was  held,  accordingly,  on  the  fourth  of  Feb- 
ruary, 1546,  at  which  nothing  was  done  except  to  recite  the 
creed,  and  to  fix  upon  the  8th  of  April  for  the  fourth  session. 

Two  months  seemed  a  long  time.  Many  of  the  bishops 
complained ;  but  it  was  replied  that  several  foreign  prelates  were 
on  their  way,  and  that  it  was  proper  that  they  should  wait  for 
them.  In  point  of  fact,  the  parties  meant  were  twelve  Spanish 
bishops  sent  by  the  emperor. 

The  pope,  on  his  side,  was  about  to  send  much  the  same  num- 
ber of  Italians.  We  shall  see  that  Italy  never  ceased  to  be  at 
all  times  in  the  majority  in  the  assembly,  but  that  no  more  did 
the  number  of  its  bishops  much  exceed  that  of  those  from  other 
countries.  Like  an  able  general  who  knows  the  exact  number 
of  soldiers  required  for  each  aflair,  Rome  sent  or  recalled  her 
partisans,  according  to  the  necessities  of  the  moment.  Certain 
of  victory,  she  did  not  wish  to  give  herself  the  air  of  being  able 
to  overwhelm  her  foes.^ 

Notwithstanding  this  precaution,  and  although  there  were 
always  some  independent  men  among  the  Italians,  there  is  no 
fact  shown  by  the  annals  of  the  time  to  have  been  more  fre- 
quently or  more  universally  alleged,  Avhether  against  the  council, 
or  against  the  pope.  On  the  least  check,  the  foreign  (non-Italian) 
bishops  wrote  to  all  Europe,  that  they  could  do  nothing,  that  they 
were  nothing,  that  the  Italians  voted  as  one  man  ;  on  the  least 

^  "\N"e  have  calculated,  on  this  occasion,  the  total  number  of  bishops 
or  abbeys  who  figured  at  Trent.  It  was  about  450 ;  of  whom  there 
were  180  foreigners,  and  2Y0  Italians;  27  to  18,  or  3  to  2. 


58  HISTORY  OF   THE   COUNCIL    OF   TRENT.  Book  I. 

discontent  being  felt  against  the  pope,  the  secular  princes  ex- 
claimed with  still  more  vehemence,  that  he  was  the  master,  the 
only  master  ;  and  that  the  Italians  swept  all  before  them. 

Now,  what  are  we  to  think  of  this  ? 

In  point  of  right,  it  could  be  no  objection.  The  council  was 
open  to  all  bishops  ;  all  had  been  invited  in  the  bull  by  which 
it  was  convoked.  Had  there  been  but  one  foreigner  against  a 
hundred  Italians,  the  assembly  was  regular,  and  its  decisions 
legal. 

In  point  of  fact,  the  matter  stood  quite  otherwise.  If  injustice 
was  done  to  the  Italians,  when  they  were  accused  of  being  always 
Italians  above  all  things,  it  is  incontestable  that  they  brought 
with  them  ideas  more  or  less  peculiar  to  their  nation,  and  the 
constant  triumph  of  which,  in  a  council-general,  might  easily 
appear  contrary  to  the  very  end  and  essence  of  such  a  council. 
The  independence  of  which  some  gave  proof,  hardly  lasted  longer 
than  the  first  few  months ;  and  when  these  were  over,  we  see 
them  openly  form  a  party.  Private  meetings,  compact  votings, 
reproaches  of  treason  against  all  who  refused  to  follow  the  tor- 
rent—  nothing  was  wanting.  While,  however,  we  blame  the 
Italians,  we  nowise  mean  to  exculpate  others.  Each  of  the 
nations  showed  plainly  enough,  that  it  only  wanted  appearing  in 
sufficient  number,  to  do  likewise.  "  Count  not  up  the  Fathers 
at  Trent,"  says  one  of  its  apologists;^  ''  ashthemnot  froimvhat 
country  they  come ;  a  Christian's  country  is  the  universe."  Fine 
words  these,  of  which  the  whole  history  of  the  comicil  is  nothing 
but  a  perpetual  refutation  ;  and  which  of  the  two  are  we  to  be- 
lieve, the  author  who  at  the  close  of  three  centuries  has  pictured 
to  us  this  magnificent  unity,  or  the  members  themselves  of  the 
council,  who  never  passed  a  day  without  mutually  accusing  each 
other  of  violating  it  ?  And  all  were  right.  It  was  impossible 
to  be  more  French  than  were  the  French — more  German  than 
the  Germans — more  Italian,  to  return  to  them,  than  the  Italians. 
How  could  it  be  otherwise  ?  The  Lutherans,  it  is  true,  asked 
for  what  was  impossible,  when  they  would  have  had  the  bishops, 
first  of  all,  loosed  from  obligations  by  oath  to  the  pope  ;  but  the 
oath  which  many  Italian  bishops  had  to  swear,  comprised, 
even  in  the  eyes  of  some  who  were  not  Lutherans,  clauses  that 
were  incompatible  with  the  liberty  which  every  member  of  a 
deliberative  assembly  ought  to  enjoy.  It  ran  thus  :  "  I  engage 
to  preserve,  to  defend,  to  augment,  to  advance  the  rights,  the 
honours,  the  privileges,  and  the  authority  of  the  holy  church, 
and  of  our  lord  the  pope  ;  not  to  take  part  in  any  deliberation, 
any  act,  any  transactions,  in  which  there  is  set  on  foot,  against 
'  Tho  Ahb;^  Prompsault,  almoner  of  Quinze-Vingt?. 


Chap.  III.   151G.      OATH   TAKEN    BY    ITALIAN    BISHOPS.  69 

our  said  Lord,  or  the  said  cliurch,  any  thinj^  whatsoever  contrary 
to,  or  to  the  prejudice  of,  their  rights,  their  honours,  their  posi- 
tion, and  their  authority."'  k^uch  had  been  the  oath  sworn  on 
the  day  of  their  consecration,  by  the  numerous  prelates  of  the 
papal  states  ;  and  the  same  formula  was  in  use,  with  but  a  few 
words  of  difference,  in  other  states  of  Italy.  Those  prelates,  then, 
were  in  the  hands  of  the  pope,  not  only  as  subjects  are  which 
have  merely  sworn  to  be  faithful,  and  are  left  free  to  see,  in 
their  oAvn  conscience,  in  what  this  allegiance  consists — but  fully, 
absolutely.  Whatever  displeased,  or  might  displease  the  pope — 
whatever  his  ministers  combated,  or  even  did  not  support,  all 
this  they  could  not,  without  perjury,  either  accept  or  allow  to 
pass  unopposed.  This  does  not  prove  that  they  were  always 
kept,  in  point  of  fact,  in  this  absolute  incapacity  for  doing  any- 
thing, or  wishing  anything,  of  themselves  ;  but  it  is  not  neces- 
sary that  a  judge  should  have  been  actually  deprived  of  his 
liberty :  it  is  enough  that  he  might  have  been  deprived  of  it,  in 
order  to  a  legal  exception  lying  against  his  decision.  Accord- 
ingly, we  see  that  in  all  that  has  been  written,  in  a  legal  point 
of  view,  against  the  council  of  Trent,^  this  oath  taken  by  the 
Italian  members  is  the  first  alleged  ground  of  nullity.  "Will  it 
be  said,  with  an  author  already  quoted,^  that  they  remained  free 
in  the  discussion  of  matters  relating  to  the  faith  ?  jSTo  I  the  pope 
as  doirmatical  head  of  the  Church  was  then  more  than  ever 
mixed  up  and  confounded  with  that  same  pope  as  head  of  the 
hierarchy.  Granting  that  if  those  bishops  remained  free  in  some 
points  not  as  yet  delinitely  settled,  it  is  clear  that  they  were  no 
longer  free  on  those  upon  wdiich  the  pope  had  pronounced  a  de- 
cision ;  the  slightest  resistance  to  his  doctrinal  decisions  w^ould 
have  been  an  insult,  a  rebellion,  of  much  more  serious  conse- 
quence than  the  most  vigorous  assaults  by  word  or  deed  against 
his  usurpations  as  a  sovereign.  Nor  was  this  enthralment  of  the 
faith  so  peculiar  to  the  Italians,  as  that  a  still  more  general  juri- 
dical nullity  might  not  be  deduced  from  it  against  the  acts  of  the 
council.  All  had  sworn  to  believe  what  the  Church  taught ;  all 
were  bound  beforehand  to  a  certain  course,  both  as  respects  the 
general  result,  and  the  details  of  the  process. 

As  for  us,  Ave  attach  httle  importance  to  these  considerations, 

^  Jura,  honores,  privilegia  et  auctoritatem  Sanctse  Rom.  Ecclesiaj  et 
domini  nostri  papte  conservare,  defendere,  augere  et  promovere  curabo. 
Neque  ero  in  consiho,  vel  facto,  vel  tractatu  in  quibus  contra  ipsum 
dominum  nostrum  vel  eandem  Rom.  Ecclesiam,  uliqua  sinistra  vel  pre- 
judiciaHa  juris,  lionoris,  status,  et  potestatis  eorum  machinentur. 

=*  Gentillet,  Dumoulin,  Ranohin,  Spanheini,  Ileideggex',  Jurieu,  Leib- 
nitz, <fec.,  (fee. 

'  Prompsault. 


60  HISTORY   OF   THE    COUNCIL    OF    TRENT,  Book  I 

all  the  more  as  they  have  not  been  left  without  reply.  Illegal 
or  not  at  the  date  of  its  being  held,  the  council  has  been  accepted 
by  the  Roman  Church.  Have  not  the  ample  folds  of  her  infal- 
libility  been  throAvn  over  all  irregularities,  intrigues,  and  nulli- 
ties both  of  form  and  principle  ?  If,  then,  we  have  to  complain 
of  the  enthralment  of  the  members  of  the  council,  it  is  of  another 
enthralment  that  we  would  speak  ;  it  is  that  which  bears  down 
and  trammels  the  pope  as  the  ultimate  bishop  or  priest.  There 
is  something  stronger  than  an  oath,  stronger  even  than  con- 
science. Habit,  interest,  espnt-du-corios,  true  or  false  shame, 
the  impossibility  of  retracting  on  one  point  without  retracting  on 
many  more,  the  desire  of  unity  for  the  sake  of  domination,  and 
of  domination  for  the  preservation  of  unity — here  we  see  what 
would  explain  to  us  much  better  than  an  oath  to  the  pope,  both 
the  council  and  its  votes,  and  the  maintenance  of  the  Roman 
system.  How  ridiculous,  be  it  said  in  passing,  this  pretended 
approbation  of  the  Church  as  the  last  seal  of  infallibility  !  At 
the  consecration  of  the  kings  of  France,  just  as  the  crown  was 
placed  on  their  head,  a  herald  proceeded  to  the  gate  of  the 
church  and  called  aloud,  "  Are  the  people  content  with  the 
king  that  has  been  given  them?"  On  this  the  crowd  called 
out,  "  Yes  ;"  and  the  herald  returned  to  say  that  the  people  had 
signified  their  approval.  Such  is  the  history  of  many  articles 
of  faith,  except  that  the  crowd  has  not  always  even  heard  the 
question  put  to  it,  whether  it  approved  or  not.  It  has  said 
nothing,  and  that  has  been  held  enough  ;  its  consent  is  inferred. 
As  if  from  the  moment  that  an  idea  has  made  some  progress, 
and  that  Rome  appears  to  favour  it,  it  were  not  morally  impos- 
sible that  a  bishop  should  A^enture  to  write,  or  even  to  speak 
against  it  I  For  we  all  know  that  the  Church  means  the  bish- 
ops.  Rome  admits  to  the  right  of  protesting  those  only  whose 
position  guarantees  their  never  exercising  that  right.  She  has 
never  even  acknowledged  their  right  to  do  so.  The  popes  have 
submitted,  when  necessary,  to  the  doctrine  of  the  consent  of  the 
bishops,  but  they  have  not  acknowledged  it,  and  still  less  have 
they  taught  it.  The  pure  ultramontanists  laugh  at  it.  "  This 
right,"  says  De  Maistre,  "  was  exercised  in  the  case  of  Fenelon, 
with  a  iiomf  tliat  was  quite  amusing''  Such  is  the  very 
episcopate  in  the  Roman  system. 


CHAPTEE   lY. 

DEATH    OF    LUTHER.       THE    AUTHORITY    OF    THE    COUNCIL.       FIC- 
TITIOUS   UNITY. 

Lxither  dies — Shut,  shut  the  Bible! — Let  us  open  it — The  question  of 
Authority — Its  bearing  exaggerated — Wliat  is  Authority  in  Religion 
— What  can  it  be — Dilemma — What,  at  bottom,  is  the  Submission 
of  those  who  think — What  is  Authority  -without  Force — God  might 
have,  God  oucjlit  to  have — What  know  you  of  that — Three  Objects — 
To  regulate  the  faith,  to  preserve  the  faith,  to  maintain  unit}* — 
Regulate  the  Faith — What  that  supposes  and  to  what  it  leads — To 
preserve  the  Faith — Have  they  succeeded — ^Variations — An  eternal 
Burthen — Unity — Does  God  intend  it — Conclusion. 

In  fine,  for  the  first  time  (it  was  now  the  22d  of  February) 
the  council  met  to  deliberate  in  good  earnest.  The  legates 
appeared  radiant  with  smiles.  Why  so  ?  Nobody  could  tell. 
Could  it  be  because  the  council  was  now  about  to  put  itself  in 
motion,  and  because,  after  having  held  a  session  for  the  Credo, 
they  would  not  be  obliged  to  hold  one  for  the  Pater,  as  was 
remarked  by  some  mischievous  wits  ?  This  Avas  doubted.  The 
legates  had  not  hitherto  looked  like  men  who  were  eager  for  the 
council  proceeding  to  business.  Could  it  be  that  the  emperor 
had  at  last  consented  to  declare  war  against  the  Protestants  ? 
possibly  so  ;  a  courier  had  arrived  from  Germany  that  very 
morning.  No.  It  was  because  of  something  else  ;  something 
better  still — Luther  was  dead  I 

Yes  ;  the  veteran  father  of  the  Reformation  was  dead — if  the 
Reformation  had  any  father  but  God,  any  mother  but  the  Word 
of  God.  He  was  dead,  but  only  after  having  viewed  with  a 
smile  of  pity  the  grand  projects  and  the  small  intrigues  of  men, 
so  infatuated  as  to  think  of  arresting  by  their  decrees  the  move- 
ments of  human  thought  and  the  very  breath  of  God.  And  see 
now  how  glad  they  are,  these  very  men  I  Even  when  feeble 
and  dying,  the  old  monk  of  Wittemberg  still  terrified  them. 
One  might  have  said,  that  they  could  never  turn  round  to  look 
at  Germany  without  their  eyes  meeting  his,  and  without  quail- 
ing before  that  eagle  glance  which  had  once  embraced  all 
Europe  from  the  top  of  the  donjon  towers  of  the  Wartburg. 


62  HISTORY   OF  THE    COUxNXIL   OF   TRpNT.  Book  I. 

At  Trent,  at  Rome,  at  Vienna,  wherever  the  partisans  and  cham- 
pions of  the  popedom  were  to  be  found,  never  could  they  meet 
by  two  or  three,  without  a  voice,  at  once  serious  and  sarcastic, 
seeming  to  pierce  the  wall,  to  overawe  theirs  and  to  silence 
them.  Now,  then,  ye  oracles  of  the  council,  you  may  proceed 
at  your  ease.  Shut,  shut  the  Bible  I  Luther  no  longer  lives 
to  open  it.  Poor  insensate  creatures  I  see  you  not,  that  once 
opened,  no  human  power  shall  shut  it  ?  "  My  good  princes 
and  lords,"  said  Luther  shortly  before  his  death,  "you  are  truly 
far  too  eager  to  see  me  die — me  who  am  but  a  poor  man.  You 
fancy,  then,  that  after  that  you  shall  have  got  the  victory  I" 
But  no ;  they  did  not  think  so,  for  they  proceeded  to  close  their 
ranks,  and  to  advance  more  vigorously  than  ever  against  the 
book  which  he  had  used  as  his  own  buckler,  and  that  of  his 
adherents. 

Now,  then,  let  us  open  that  Bible,  and  let  us  not  take  our 
eyes  off  it,  we  who,  after  the  lapse  of  three  centuries,  are  about 
to  relate  the  doings  of  that  famous  assembly  which  laboured  so 
hard  to  have  it  closed.  If  it  is  by  history  and  reason  that  we 
can  shake  the  authority  of  the  Council  of  Trent,  it  is  by  the 
Bible  only  that  we  can  hope  to  subvert  it  altogether. 

Here  our  First  Book  should  close.  The  council  was  about  to 
open,  questions  of  quite  another  kind  will  now  present  them- 
selves. It  is  bv  desiirn  that  we  have  broufjht  too^ether  in  this 
first  part,  at  the  risk  of  weakening  its  interest,  all  the  prelimi- 
nary objections  bearing  on  the  convocation  and  the  composition 
of  the  assembly,  on  its  relations  with  the  pope  and  the  secular 
sovereigns ;  in  a  word,  on  its  position,  and  the  part  that  it  had 
to  perform  in  the  Church.  But  there  is  another  question  Avhich 
is  paramount  to  all  the  rest,  and  with  which  we  shall  close  this 
first  series  of  our  observations — the  question,  to  wit,  of  the 
council's  authority. 

Let  us  say  frankly  at  the  outset,  that  there  has  been  a  little, 
if  we  may  not  rather  say  a  great  deal,  of  exaggeration  in  the 
importance  people  have  given  to  it.  One  thing  strikes  us  in  the 
preaching  and  the  writings  of  the  Roman  Catholicism  of  our 
day :  it  is  the  care  with  which  it  avoids  discussions  in  detail, 
and  controversies  positively  doctrinal.  The  course  almost  inva- 
riably pursued  by  the  great  preachers  of  the  day,^  is  to  preach 
authority,  the  Church,  and  then  to  assume  as  admitted  all  that 
the  Church  teaches.  Think  you  that  they  have  proved  tran- 
substantiation  to  the  thousands  whom  they  sometimes,  in  large 

^  It  is  also,  in  general,  that  of  Wiseman  in  his  Conferences :  "This 
sole  demonstration,"  says  he,  "suffices  to  put  beyond  the  I'eaeh  of  at- 
tack all  the  points  on  which  we  have  been  accused  of  being  in  error." 


Chap.  IV.  1M6.  THE    COUNCIL'S   AUTHORITY.  63 

cities,  succeed  in  inducing  to  communicate  ?  Not  at  all.  After 
long  discourses  on  the  authority  of  the  Church,  they  have  not 
even  said  to  them,  "  She  teaches  transubstantiation  ;  yoic  ought 
thereibrc  to  believe  in  it."  That  yoit  ougid  would  have  spoiled 
all.  They  feel  that  the  smallest  objection  of  detail  which  they 
could  not  fully  overmaster,  would  instantly  deprive  the  princi- 
ples they  had  so  laboriously  laid  down,  ol"  all  worth,  all  force 
In  vain  would  you  have  led  people  to  say  with  you  that  there 
must  be  an  authority,  that  there  actually  is  one,  and  that  it  is 
that  of  the  Church  :  should  there  happen  to  be  a  single  point 
in  what  you  shall  have  taught  them  in  its  name,  which  they 
cannot  decidedly  admit,  it  will  be  all  one  as  if  you  had  done 
nothing. 

Such  is  the  sense  in  which  we  would  say  that  the  importance 
of  the  question  of  authority  is  at  the  present  day  exaggerated. 
People  start  with  the  idea  that  it  is  everything,  when  in  reality 
it  is  nothing.  Although  we  should  commence  here  with  the 
confession  that  we  have  not  a  word  to  say  in  reply,  in  theory, 
to  such  or  such  a  book,  in  which  this  system  is  eloquently  set 
forth,  a  Roman  Catholic  doctor  would  not  the  less  be  bound, 
under  the  penalty  of  yieldmg  to  us  with  one  hand  the  victory 
carried  off  by  the  other,  to  reply  to  all  which  w^e  shall  after- 
wards object  in  detail  to  the  decisions  of  Trent.  Let  him  then 
be  beaten  on  a  single  point,  and  we  shall  be  entitled  to  say  to 
him,  "  Your  authority  has  been  mistaken  ;  wdiat  you  have  told 
us  of  its  infallibility,  therefore,  is  necessarily  false.  It  makes  no 
answ^er  to  objections ;  in  fact,  it  exists  only  for  the  man  who 
renounces  objecting."  Shall  we  after  this  discuss  in  detail  the 
texts  which  the  Church  brings  in  support  of  her  infallibility? 
"  The  Church,"  she  says,  "  is,  according  to  St.  Paul,  the  pillar 
and  stay  of  the  truth."  ''  The  gates  of  hell,"  according  to  Jesus 
Christ  himself,  "  shall  not  prevail  against  it."  And  is  it  not 
Jesus  Christ,  too,  who  promised  to  St.  Peter,  to  pray  for  him — 
tliat  thy  faith  fail  not  ? 

Much  might  be  said  about  the  very  meaning  of  these  decla- 
rations, and  of  that  last  one  in  particular ;  lor  faith,  in  the 
Saviour's  discourses,  means  generally  confidence,  fidelity,  de- 
votedness,  not  belief  in  such  and  such  doctrines.  But  had  we 
no  such  objection,  it  is  a  question  on  which  texts  of  Scripture 
prove  nothing  more  than  a  2^^'iori  reasonings  do.  If  Jesus 
Christ  has  said  to  his  apostles,  "  I  am  with  you  always  even  to 
the  end  of  the  world  ;"  it  is  he  also  who  declared,  that  "  wher- 
ever two  or  three  are  met  together  in  his  name,  there  is  he  in 
the  midst  of  them  ;"  if  he  has  promised  to  his  Church  the  aids 
of  bis  Holy  Spirit,  he  has  said  by  the  mouth  of  one  of  his  apos- 


64  HISTORY   OF  THE    COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  I. 

ties,  that  "  God  giveth  the  Holy  Spirit  to  those  who  ask  him." 
What  would  you  reply  to  him  who,  resting  on  that  last  passage, 
should  insist  that  he  is  infallibly  in  the  right  ?  Would  you 
object  to  him  that  he  has  asked  for  the  Holy  Spirit,  but  that  he 
cannot  affirm  that  he  has  obtained  it  ?  No,  he  will  say,  for 
the  promise  is  express  :  "  God  giveth  the  spirit  to  them  who 
ask  it ;"  and  Jesus  Christ  has  elsewhere  said,  "  Whatsoever  ye 
shall  ask  of  the  Father  in  my  name,  he  will  give  it  to  you." 
We  should  find,  in  short,  as  many  and  more  passages  in  favour 
of  individual  infallibility  than  of  the  infallibility  of  the  Church. 
If  the  former  are  evidently  figurative,  the  latter  may  be  so  too. 
In  order  to  prove  that  they  are  not  so — that  God  has  promised 
to  his  Church  never  to  suffer  it  to  err,  we  must  ever  revert  to 
the  proof  that  it  has  not  erred. 

Of  what  avail,  in  fine,  in  this  question,  can  be  any  appeal 
whatever  to  Scripture  ?  To  quote  it,  is  neither  more  nor  less 
than  to  assume  the  very  contrary  of  what  one  wants  to  estab- 
lish ;  it  is  to  call  us  to  the  exercise  of  the  right  that  is  refused 
to  us.  A¥e  are  told  that  we  must  renounce  our  own  individual 
judgment ;  that  to  the  Church  alone  belongs  the  right  to  inter- 
pret the  Bible ;  and,  lo,  the  first  thing  done,  is  to  give  us  the 
Bible  to  interpret.  If  the  passages  adduced  seem  insufficient, 
what  shall  be  done  ?  Should  they  appear  conclusive,  should  the 
Church,  happy  to  see  us  enter  into  her  views,  tell  us  that  we 
have  judged  rightly — we  then  come  to  a  very  simple  conclusion, 
which  is  this  :  that  if  we  have  made  a  good  use  of  our  judgment 
once,  we  cannot  believe  ourselves  incapable  of  making  an  equally 
good  use  of  it  another  time. 

Thus  every  demonstration  of  the  Church's  infallibility  is,  of 
itself,  a  vicious  circle.  Infallibility  gains  converts  by  imposture, 
not  by  demonstration. 

We  might  ask  then,  in  the  first  place,  if  the  Roman  authority, 
if  any  authority  whatever — in  the  Roman  sense  of  that  word — 
can  be  anything  but  a  word,  a  misconception,  an  illusion  ? 

"  My  body  is  in  your  hands,"  said  a  philosopher  to  a  tyrant. 
"  You  may  sew  up  my  mouth,  shut  me  up,  load  me  with  chains, 
reduce  me  to  eternal  immobility  ;  but  my  soul  is  firee,  and  will 
remain  free." 

For  twenty  centuries  and  more  these  words  have  been  admired, 
not  only  as  courageous,  but  also  and  above  all  as  profoundly  true. 
Well,  then,  if  the  philosopher  was  right  before  a  pagan  tyrant, 
could  he  be  wrong  before  an  inquisitor  ? 

The  only  being  to  whom  we  cannot  hold  this  language  is  God. 
For  man,  with  respect  to  all  that  pertains  to  thought,  the  sole 
means  of  his  acting  upon  man,  is  persuasion.       To  this  add  two 


Chap.  IV.  IMC.       ROME'S    METHODS    OF    ACTING    ON   MEN.  65 

indirect  methods ;  the  one,  to  habituate  the  mind  to  he  silent ; 
the  other,  to  constrain  it  by  external  acts  of  violence. 

Let  us  first  denion.strate — and  it  will  not  take  us  long — that 
none  of  these  three  means,  the  only  means  possible,  is  really 
authority. 

Logically,  we  have  said,  the  only  one  possible  is  persuasion. 
And,  accordingly,  we  do  not  see  that  our  adversaries  are  unwill- 
ing to  place  it  in  the  lirst  line,  be  it  ever  so  little  feasible,  or 
though  there  be  the  means  of  doing  otherwise.  They  will  not 
tell  an  atheist  to  believe  in  God  because  the  Church  ordains 
him  to  do  so  ;  and  even,  whoever  the  person  may  be  who  is  to 
be  convinced,  before  proceeding  to  the  grand  argument,  "  the 
Church  lues  said  it,''  they  will  always  put  forward,  at  least  for 
form's  sake,  some  rational  arguments. 

Then,  of  two  things,  one  must  happen  :  either  these  arguments 
suffice  for  conviction,  or  they  do  not  suffice. 

If  they  suffice,  you  then  submit ;  but  how  ?  Precisely  as  you 
would  to  any  mere  man,  who  alone,  armed  with  nothing  but  his 
reason,  should  labour  to  inculcate  his  ideas  on  you.  On  this  field, 
the  priest's  authority  is  just  that  of  every  man  who  reasons. 
That  of  the  Church  is  not  required.  If  these  arguments  do  not 
suffice,  you  resist.  Then  you  are  told  to  believe,  for  so  the 
Church  ordains.  But  here,  again,  of  two  things  we  have  one ; 
either  you  make  up  your  mind  to  believe,  or  you  persist  in  not 
believing.  If  you  persist  in  not  believing,  the  man  who  has  ad- 
dressed you  in  the  name  of  the  Church,  ffiids  himself  exactly  m 
the  same  position  a»  one  who  should  have  addressed  you  in  his 
own  name,  and  failed  at  last  for  want  of  new  arguments.  If 
you  make  up  your  mind  to  believe,  will  it  be,  really  and  truly, 
because  you  have  been  commanded  to  do  so  ?  No  ;  it  does  not 
depend  on  you  to  obey  an  order  of  this  nature.  VYhat  then  has 
been  the  result  ? 

First  of  all,  it  is  possible  that  the  testimony  of  the  Church  may 
have  reinforced  in  your  eyes  the  reasons  which  you  had  previous- 
ly found  wanting  in  force.  But,  then,  it  is  still  to  reasons  that 
you  yield  ;  the  Church's  part  is  reduced  to  that  of  every  per- 
son of  weight  placed  in  a  position  to  augment  the  probability 
of  an  opinion,  by  his  example  and  his  Avords.  It  is  an  aitthor- 
ity  in  the  vulgar  sense  of  the  word  ;  it  is  not  authority  in  the 
Roman  sense. 

It  may  happen,  in  the  second  place,  that,  without  ceasing  to 
consider  the  reasons  weak,  you  come  at  last  to  distrust  yourself, 
and  to  think  it  more  prudent,  more  conformable  with  Christian 
humility,  more  convenient  also,  to  bow  the  head  and  be  silent. 

It  is  this — Rome  makes  no  secret  of  it — it  is  this  disposition 


G6  HISTORY   OF   THE    C0U^X1L   OF   TKENT.  Book  L 

which  Rome  chiefly  requires,  and  which  she  has  constantly 
sought  to  maintain,  both  among  individuals  and  nations.  Thus 
we  come  to  the  second  of  the  three  means  indicated  above  :  the 
habituating  of  the  mind  to  silence  and  to  keep  aloof. 

It  is  the  surest  of  the  three  ;  and  the  Roman  Church  has 
largely  and  ably  employed  it.  She  found  it  attended  with  two 
advantages  :  first,  it  enabled  her  to  reign  ;  next,  to  reign  with- 
out obstacle,  without  having  the  air  of  oppressing,  without  seem- 
ing to  rest  on  anything  but  the  unanimous  assent  of  her  members. 
Can  it  be  said  that  her  doctors  and  her  chiefs  have  really  had 
among  them  a  regular,  positive,  invariable  plan  for  the  enslave- 
ment of  mankind  ?  No  ;  her  doctors  and  her  chiefs  themselves, 
as  we  have  already  remarked,  have  merely  yielded  to  that  mys- 
terious spirit  under  whose  influence  their  part  has  been  at  once 
active  and  passive,  haughty  and  humble.  If  there  was  any  cal- 
culation, it  was  a  calculation  altogether  of  instinct.  They  were 
sufficiently  aware,  that  in  order  to  demand  submission  with  effect, 
they  must  begin  with  submission  on  their  own  part.  Hence  the 
astonishing  docility  of  which  so  many  men  of  fine  genius  have 
given  proof  towards  the  Church  of  Rome  ;  hence  that  respectful 
silence  which  they  have  shown  on  so  many  difficulties,  which  we 
could  not  conceive  their  not  having  seen  as  we  see  them,,  and 
even  better  than  we. 

But  Rome  has  not  always  succeeded  in  obtaining  this  silence 
so  completely  as  that  we  should  not  be  able  to  analyze  it  and 
discover  its  true  meaning.  "  God  has  permitted  a  bad  success," 
wrote  Fenelon,^  on  learning  that  he  had  been  condemned  by  the 
pope.  Certainly  the  man  who  says,  "  God  has  'permitted  me  to 
be  condemned,"  is  far  from  having  abjured,  in  his  own  secret 
heart,  the  ideas  for  which  he  has  been  condemned.  "  I  hold  my 
peace,  but  not  the  less  convinced  am  I  that  I  was  right ;"  such, 
according  to  this  letter,  and  several  others,^  was  what  Fenelon's 
submission  came  to  at  last. 

Listen  to  Luther  as  he  expressed  himself  in  1518  :  "I  present 
myself  to  you,  and  throw  myself  at  your  feet.  Most  Holy  Father, 
myself,  and  all  that  is  in  me.  Bestow  life  or  death  ;  call,  recall, 
approve,  disapprove.  I  recognise  your  voice  as  the  voice  of 
Christ,  who  speaks  and  reigns  in  you."  The  voice  spoke — and 
Luther  remained  none  the  less  Luther. 

Listen  to  Lamennais  in  1S31  :  "0  Father,  condescend  to  look 
down  on  some  of  thy  children  who  are  accused  of  being  rebels 
against  thine  infallible  authority.  If  one  thought,  one  single 
thought  of  theirs,  departs  from  thine,  they  disavow  it,  they  abj  ure 

^  Letter  to  the  Abb6  de  Chanterac,  his  agent  at  Rome. 

"  These  will  be  foiand  in  his  Life^  by  the  Cardinal  de  Bausset. 


Chap.  IV.  1546.     AUTHORITY    HAS    NO    DIRECT   INFLUENCE.  67 

it."      Tlie   voice  spoke — and  Lamcniiais  not  the  less  became, 
what  he  is,  an  infidel. 

Accordingly,  we  repeat,  authority  exists  for  him  only  who  has 
the  wish,  tor  him  only  who  has  the  power  to  submit  to  it.  Di- 
rect intluencc  it  has  none.  Even  with  the  most  ardent  desire  to 
be  docile  under  it,  still  this  may  be  beyond  your  power.  In  that 
case,  either  you  submit,  but  with  a  submission  altogether  exter- 
nal, altogether  in  show,  like  that  of  Fenelon,  of  the  Jansenists, 
and  many  more  ;^  or,  like  Luther,  like  all  whom  reason,  right  or 
wrong,  has  kept  from  obeying— •j'ou  resist. 

In  that  case  there  remains  the  third  means — constraint. 
This  is  the  natural,  the  indispensable  complement  of  the  Roman 
system  ;  and  it  is  in  fact  always  associated  with  it,  everywhere, 
at  least,  wherever  it  has  the  power.  Unaided  by  the  civil  au- 
thority, it  is  clear  that  the  Church's  authority  is  in  the  same  con- 
ditions as  every  other  intellectual  and  moral  authority  :  a  little 
weaker,  a  little  stronger,  according  to  individuals — that  is  all. 
Let  the  humblest  plebeian  get  some  new  idea  into  his  mind  : 
twenty  popes,  twenty  councils,-  the  Avhole  Christian  world  leagued 
against  him,  will  not  change  his  conviction  by  commanding  him 
to  change  it.  If  he  persist  in  calling  for  proofs,  you  must  give 
them  to  him  ;  if  you  have  none,  or  if  he  think  them  bad,  what 
can  you  do  ?  Imprison  him,  torture  him,  you  may  ;  convince 
him  you  cannot.  Accordingly,  now-a-days,  in  those  countries 
where  the  secular  power  is  not  at  the  service  of  the  Roman 
Church,  Avhat  does  its  authority  amount  to  ?  Does  it  arrest  the 
progress  of  a  single  idea  ?  "Where  are  there  printed  most  immor- 
al and  infidel  books — at  London  or  at  Paris  ?  Where  are  relig- 
ion and  its  ministers  subjected  to  most  contemptuous  ridicule  ? 
Although  Rome  should  succeed  in  reconquering,  wdthout  any  ex- 
ternal aid,  all  the  power  she  has  ever  possessed  only  through  the 
assistance  of  physical  force,  still  this  would  be  a  fact  which  could 
prove  nothing  in  point  of  right.  Although  you  were  to  show  us 
the  entire  world  laid  prostrate  before  the  Roman  infallibility,  not 
the  less  might  we  say,  "  It  may  rise  again  to-morrow,  and,  should 
it  rise  again,  it  escapes  from  you." 

To  recapitulate  :  If  you  persuade  me  by  dint  of  reasons,  you 
deal  with  me  on  a  footing  of  equality.  There  will  be  no  au- 
thority there.  If  you  habituate  me  to  dispense  with  reasons,  no 
more  do  you  exercise  any  empire  over  my  understanding.  It 
holds  itself  aloof,  but  it  does  not  submit.  The  proof  of  this  is, 
that  at  any  moment  it  may  rise  again  with  all  its  rights,  all  its 

^  The  pope  threatens  us  with  thuiulering  constitutions.  A  good  in- 
tention, with  little  enlightenment,  is  a  great  evil  in  high  phices. — Bossuet, 
Letter  to  the  Abbe  de  Ranee. 


68  HISTORY  OF   THE  COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  I. 

audacity,  all  its  doubts.  Neither  is  there  authority  here.  If 
you  have  recourse  to  physical  force — you  have,  then,  to  do  with 
my  body  ;  my  soul  is,  and  remains  free.  Still  less  is  there  au- 
thority in  this  case.  The  best  way,  therefore,  of  combating  au- 
thority, such  as  Rome  arrogates,  is  to  deny  it.  Legitimate  or 
not,  infallible  or  not,  one  word  decides  all  ;  it  is  impossible. 
Either  there  is  persuasion,  or  there  is  nothing,  nothing  but  a 
brute  force  which  the  first  tyrant  that  comes  may  quite  as  well 
put  forth  to  the  advantage  of  any  idea,  any  ambition  whatever. 
But  if  the  authority  of  the  Roftian  Church,  let  people  do  what 
they  please,  reduces  itself  necessarily  to  two  means  altogether 
human,  persuasion  or  constraint — does  not  this  prove  at  once 
that  it  has  not  received  that  authority  from  God  ?  God  would 
have  trifled  with  the  Church  had  he  authorized  her  to  impose 
creeds,  without  at  the  same  time  enabling  her  to  operate  inter- 
nally on  men's  souls  so  as  to  make  them  accept  those  creeds. 
But  the  Church  has  never  pretended  to  be  endowed  with  any 
such  power.  She  has  only  had  that  of  persecuting,  and  that,  it 
is  clear,  God  never  gave  her  any  more  than  he  had  given  it  be- 
fore to  a  Nero  or  a  Diocletian.  He  left  her  to  do  as  she  pleased, 
as  he  had  left  them  to  do  as  they  pleased.  P aliens  quia 
ceternus. 

After  this,  what  becomes  of  reasonings  a  'priori  ?  What  do 
they  prove  at  bottom,  even  although  all  we  have  said  should  go 
for  nothing  ?  If  there  has  been  a  revelation,  it  is  said,  there 
ought  to  be  an  authority  accompanying  it.  How  reconcile  the 
idea  of  a  revelation  given  by  a  God,  with  the  idea  that  revela- 
tion has  not  been  secured,  from  its  origin,  against  all  alteration  ? 
How  could  Luther  have  been  able  to  believe  in  the  divinity  of 
Jesus  Christ,  and  yet  doubt  for  a  moment  that  that  same  Jesus 
behoved  to  guard,  and  knew  how  to  guard  his  religion  against 
all  which  .  .  .  bzc,}  This  we  find  reiterated  in  every  form,  from 
the  pulpit,  in  books,  everywhere. 

Let  us  see.  We,  too,  venture  to  reason.  "  How  can  you 
reconcile  the  idea  of  God's  holiness  with  the  idea  that  the  creat- 
ure of  his  predilection,  the  creature  made  hi  his  imuge,  man  in 
short,  has  not  been  secured  from  his  origin,  against  all  invasion 
of  moral  evil  ?"  Well,  then,  if  evil  had  not  been  there,  evident, 
palpable,  Ave  might  defy  any  one  to  demonstrate  wherein  this 
reasoning  is  less  conclusive  than  the  former. 

God  inis^hi  liave !  No  doubt.  God  ou2,}it  to  have  !  What 
know  you  of  that  ?  Are  there  not  enough  of  other  things  which, 
to  our  poor  human  eyes,  seem  necessary,  and  which  God,  never- 
theless, has  not  done  ? 

^  Robelot,  Injluence  de  la  Reformation  de  Luther. 


Chap.  IV.  1510.       THE    BIBLE   ADDRESSED   TO   EVERYBODY.  69 

All  authority  is  necessary. — Why  ?  For  three  things,  v/c  are 
told — to  regidate  the  faith  ;  to  preserve  it ;  to  maintain  unity. 
One  Avord  on  each  of  these  three  points. 

To  regulate  the  faith. — This  presupposes,  \st,  the  insuffi- 
ciency of  written  revelation  ;  2d,  the  possibility  of  remedying 
that  insufficiency. 

Now,  let  us  go  back  eighteen  centuries.  Suppose  yourself  at 
Rome ;  a  pagan,  but,  like  Plato,  sighing  for  an  illumination  Irom 
above.  Suppose  the  history  of  the  Jews,  of  the  Saviour,  of  the 
apostles,  to  be  entirely  unknown  to  you.  A  book  is  announced 
to  you,  and  in  that  you  are  told  is  to  be  found  the  desideratum 
you  have  longed  for. 

What  idea  would  men  naturally  form,  before  being  acquainted 
with  it,  of  the  much  desired  volume  ?  Some  would  figure  to 
themselves  a  book  of  philosophy  ;  others,  a  dialogue  between 
God  and  man  ;  these  w^ould  expect  to  find  it  a  course  of  theology, 
those  a  positive  and  compact  code  of  laws.  In  a  word,  each 
would  construct  the  work  after  his  own  manner,  and  put  into  it 
his  own  ideas,  his  own  tastes,  perhaps  even  his  own  passions. 
But  if  there  be  one  idea  which,  according  to  all  probabihties, 
w^ould  never  enter  any  one's  head,  it  is  that  the  book  should  not 
be  for  everybody,  and  that  there  should  be  men  exclusively  com- 
missioned to  read  it,  and  to  impose  upon  others  what  they  shall 
have  beheved  that  they  have  found  in  it.  "  There  will  be  some," 
people  would  naturally  think,  "  who  shall  make  it  their  special 
study.  And  to  such  men  it  will  be  natural  for  people  to  listen 
with  the  deference  due  to  their  superior  intelhgence  and  their 
labours ;  but  not  the  less  must  the  book  remain  the  common 
property  of  all.  To  study  it  must  be  considered  as  the  right  of 
all  and  the  duty  of  all." 

Here,  too,  we  admit,  there  is  an  argument  a  2>riori.  We 
draw  no  conclusion  from  it.  Let  us  only  see  what  shall  be 
thought  of  it  afterwards  by  those  who  shall  have  formed  it. 

What  shall  they  think  of  it  ?  They  will  not  even  have  any 
occasion  to  return  to  it.  When  they  come  to  read  the  book,  will 
they  find  in  it  a  single  word  likely  to  suggest  a  doubt  as  to  the 
justness  of  their  anticipations  ?  Will  they  find  a  single  word 
indicating  that  the  instructions  which  it  contains  must  neces- 
sarily pass  through  the  mouths  of  certain  men  ?  A  single  word, 
in  fine,  which  does  not  appear  to  be  addressed  to  everybody,  in 
order  that  each  may  take  from  it  whatever  his  mind,  his  con- 
science, his  heart  shall  have  found  in  it.  No  ;  it  required  sever- 
al ages  and  all  the  perspicacity  of  ambition  to  discover  in  some 
of  the  Master's  words,  the  germs  of  that  power  which  Rome 
has  arrogated  to  herself.     Even  although  we  should  accept,   as 


70  HISTORY    OF    THE    COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  I, 

addressed  to  her,  all  the  promises  of  aid  and  inspiration  made 
to  the  Church  in  general,  still  she  would  be  far  from  having  re- 
ceived as  many  of  them  as  the  Jewish  Church,  of  which  God 
was  so  long  the  head,  and  almost  the  visible  head,  so  direct  was 
his  intervention  in  the  smallest  details  of  that  Church's  destiny. 
Was  the  Jewish  Church,  on  that  account,  exempt  from  error  ? 
Did  Jesus  Christ  find  nothing  to  reproach  her  with  ?  Did  she 
open  her  eyes  to  that  new  light  which  had  been  announced  to 
her  for  a  thousand  years?  The  Jews  called  themselves  "the 
chosen  race,"  and  hence  they  concluded  that  the  truth  could 
never  depart  from  among  them.  AVhat  less  reason  had  they  for 
this,  than  Rome  has  at  the  present  day  ?  If  they  erred,  nothing 
will  demonstrate  that  Rome  may  not  err. 

Thus,  although  there  were  as  much  proof  as  there  is  little  of 
the  insufficiency  of  the  Bible,  still  nothing  could  prove  that  the 
Roman  Church  is  charged,  and  alone  charged,  v/ith  the  task  of 
supplying  what  is  wanting  in  it.  And  what  if,  passing  to  facts, 
we  should  now  inquire  how  she  has  done  this  ?  With  what  has 
she  filled  up  those  vacuities  which  she  has  thought  good  to  per- 
ceive in  written  revelation  ?  Are  those  doctrines  of  which,  ac- 
cording to  her  own  admission,  there  are  few,  and  according  to 
our  conviction,  no  traces  in  the  Bible — are  they,  at  least,  so 
much  in  accordance  with  the  spirit  of  the  rest,  that  one  can 
readily  believe  them  to  have  emanated  from  the  same  source  ? 
What  I  the  God  who  could  dictate  several  hundreds  of  pages 
without  there  being  a  single  word  in  them  about  such  and  such 
Roman  doctrines,  it  is  He  who  long  afterwards  dictated  the 
decrees  by  virtue  of  which  those  doctrines  have  obtained  a  place 
— and  what  place  I  often  the  first  among  the  doctrines  of  Chris- 
tianity !  But  let  us  not  anticipate.  We  have  here  to  do  with  a 
question  of  principles,  and  must  say  nothing  that  is  not  followed 
up  with  proof. 

Nevertheless,  it  would  be  by  facts  that  we  should  again  be 
able  best  to  reply  to  the  second  thing  alleged,  that  authority  is 
necessary /o?*  the  'preservation  of  the  faith.  We  would  ask  our- 
selves how  it  has  preserved  it ;  we  would  call  upon  it  to  justify, 
one  by  one,  the  alterations  of  all  sorts  to  which  it  has  lent  itself, 
and,  as  we  said  at  the  commencement  of  these  reflections,  one 
single  unjustifiable  point  would  suffice  to  annihilate  the  very 
strongest  pleas  that  could  have  been  urged  in  favour  of  authority. 
This  is  just  what  we  have  had  chiefly  in  view  in  the  composi- 
tion of  the  present  history,  and  here  we  can  but  refer  the  reader 
to  it. 

As  long  as  Christian  doctrines  preserved  their  primitive  sim- 
plicity— as  long  as  the  Scripture  was  in  every  one's  hands — as 


Chap.  IV.  1546.       TWO   AUTHORITIES   MERGED   IN    ONE.  71 

long  as  the  pulpits  resounded  with  invitations  to  study  it — we 
do  not  see  that  the  idea  ever  entered  any  one's  head  of  setting 
up  that  abstract  being,  the  Church,  as  the  regulator  and  the 
preserver  of  doctrine,  still  less  of  granting  her  any  right  to  lord 
it  over  the  conscience  and  the  reason  of  her  members.  There 
were  councils  ;  be  it  so  ;  still  there  was  none  in  the  course  of  the 
first  three  centuries.  But  it  is  one  thing  to  meet  for  the  pur- 
pose of  coming  to  a  common  understanding  as  to  what  is  to  bo 
taught,  to  condemn  accidentally  such  or  such  an  opinion  which 
is  believed  to  be  mischievous,  and  quite  another  thing  to  arro- 
gate, as  with  Divine  authority,  the  absolute  right  of  teaching 
and  condemning.  We  deny  that  this  right  was  arrogated.  If 
there  was  in  the  third,  the  fourth,  or  even  the  fifth  century,  any- 
thing resembling  it,  what  could  be  the  meaning  of  those  constant 
calls  on  the  part  of  the  Fathers,  to  the  reading,  the  study,  the 
examination  of  tlie  Holy  Scriptures  ?  Accordingly,  it  was  not 
till  after  having  admitted  certain  articles  of  faith,  which,  to  say 
the  least,  were  liazardous  and  controvertible,  that  it  was  found 
necessary  to  fall  upon  some  means  of  binding  them  up  with  those 
which  nobody  contested  ;  in  short,  the  protection  of  that  w4iich 
was  not  sufficiently  protected  by  the  authority  of  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures, was  the  desideratum  which  gave  birth  to  the  authority  of 
the  Church.  By  little  and  little  this  protection  was  extended 
to  the  Bible  itself ;  it  was  no  longer  from  the  hands  of  God,  but 
from  the  hands  of  the  Church,  that  men  had  to  believe  they 
got  the  sacred  volume.  Henceforward  the  two  authorities  were 
merged  in  one.  And  this  fusion,  altogether  to  the  advantage  of 
the  Church,  became  every  day  more  complete  ;  the  Bible  disap- 
pearing as,  wl>en  a  building  is  finished,  the  first  laid  stones  dis- 
appear in  the  foundations.  At  this  very  day,  three  centuries 
after  the  Reformation,  there  are  people  whom  an  appeal  to  the 
Bible  profoundly  astonishes,  whom  a  quotation  from  the  Bible, 
even  when  they  have  no  reply  to  make  to  it,  does  not  in  the 
least  shake.  And  yet  they  will  not  tell  you  either  that  it  is 
wrong,  or  that  it  has  been  abrogated  ;  they  very  well  know  that 
their  Church  sometimes  quotes  it ;  but  to  quote  it  otherwise  than 
the  Church  does,  is  a  novelty  which  confounds  them.  Why 
should  that  Bible  interfere  ?  No  doubt,  the  instrument  is  good  ; 
but  just  because  it  is  good,  why  should  it  produce  any  sounds 
different  from  those  that  the  Church  extracts  from  it. 

We  admit,  on  the  credit  of  science,  things  quite  contrary  to 
the  evidence  of  the  senses,  the  earth's  motion  round  the  sun,  for 
example  ;  why,  then,  not  admit,  on  the  credit  of  the  Church, 
something  different  from  what  seems  to  be  said  in  the  Bible  ? 
So,  then,  this  is  the  way  in  which  some  remain  Roman  Catholics, 


•/ 


12  HISTORY   OF   THE    COUNCIL    OF    TRENT.  Book  I. 

although  they  see  clearly  in  the  Bible  the  contrary  of  what  they 
believe.^ 

Yes,  doubtless,  an  authority  was  necessary,  absolutely  neces- 
sary, for  the  preservation  of  so  many  things  which  reason,  con- 
science, and  most  of  all,  the  Gospel,  would  so  soon  have  exploded  ; 
but,  would  that  same  Gospel,  abandoned  to  itself,  delivered  into 
men's  hands  as  it  came  from  the  apostles,  with  nothing  but  its 
divine  beauty  to  defend  it,  without  other  means  of  constraint 
than  are  to  be  found  in  the  majesty  of  its  doctrines,  and  the  re- 
sistless charm  of  its  morality — would  that  Gospel  run  any  risk 
of  being  lost  ?  Would  it  not  always  have  been  there,  an  in- 
spired guide,  an  immutable  regulator,  to  keep  people  in  the  M^ay 
of  truth,  or  to  bring  them  back  to  it  ?  Throw  into  one  heap  all 
the  variations,  all  the  divergences,  all  the  modifications,  to  which 
the  Gospel  may  have  been  subjected  among  those  countless  sects 
which  have  been  made  a  matter  of  reproach  against  the  Re- 
formation— and  let  it  be  shown  us,  with  the  Bible  in  our  hand, 
whether  all  of  them  taken  together,  have  altered  it  more  than 
Homan  Catholicism  alone  has  done.  With  authority  the  Bible 
was  eclipsed  ;  with  liberty  never,  whatever  some  men  may  have 
■said  or  done,  never  have  men's  eyes  ceased  1o  be  fixed  on  it. 
Amid  the  most  violent  disputes,  amid  troubles  and  convulsions, 
amid  attack  and  retaliation  with  the  pen  and  the  sword,  it  has 
kept  its  place  on  the  altar,  ever  circled  about  with  men's  homage, 
ever  studied,  ever  pondered,  ever  ready  to  produce  its  fruits  of 
peace  and  salvation.  Read  those  eloquent  counsels  of  a  Chry- 
sostom,  of  a  Basil,  of  an  Augustine,  of  all  the  Fathers,  in  fine, 
on  the  duty  of  seeking  in  the  Book  of  Life  the  daily  food  of  our 

^  It  is  an  observation,  which  "we  will  take  the  liberty  of  recommend- 
ing to  Protestant  controversialists,  that  they  forget  too  much,  in  general, 
that  they  have  to  do  with  people  for  whom  the  Bible  is  nothing — no- 
thing at  least  by  itself,  from  the  moment  it  does  not  seem  to  be  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  Church ;  they  make  it  too  much  their  only  battle-axe, 
and  are  not  aware  of  the  slight  effect  of  their  heaviest  blows.  Were 
these  only  blows  that  had  missed  their  proper  aim,  one  would  only 
have  to  take  a  surer  aim  the  next  time.  But  the  worst  of  it  is,  that  by 
having  recourse  to  the  Bible  against  people  who  have  not  yet  recognised 
its  supreme  authority,  we  are  always  habituating  them  more  and  more 
to  recognise  it  only  as  a  secondary  authority,  and  not  to  look  upon  it 
as  pronouncing  in  the  last  resort.  Thus  in  all  polemics  with  people 
who  have  not  yet  approached  the  Bible  with  the  most  profound  re- 
spect, call  not  in  the  Bible  to  your  aid,  until  you  have  in  some  sort 
driven  them  from  all  other  positions  on  to  it,  by  means  of  every  other 
argument  that  you  have  been  able  to  find ;  do  not  allow  the  sword  of 
God  to  be  employed  in  uselessly  beating  the  air.  Let  this  observation, 
at  the  same  time,  be  our  excuse,  with  such  as  may  find  fault  with  this 
book  for  not  being  biblical  enough.  For  Protestants  it  is  sufficiently 
so;  for  Roman  Catholics,  it  is  better  to  have  it  no  more  so  than  it  is. 


Chap.  IV.  1546.    ROMAN    VAGARIES— PROTESTANT  VARIATIONS.  73 

souls,  and  say  if  ever  there  wns  an  epoch  in  which  their  counsels 
were  better  followed  than  in  the  first  times  of  the  Reformation. 
By  way  of  answer  we  arc  told  to  look  at  the  picture  of  the  ex- 
travagancies occasioned,  in  some  places,  by  this  superabundance 
of  religious  and  theological  life  ;    but  though  some  minds,  on 
being  set  free  by  the  Reformation,  may  have  here  and  there 
given  birth  to  things  that  by  no  means  embellished  its  history, 
would  it  be  difficult,  on  the  other  hand,  to  find  in  that  of  Roman 
Catholicism,  vagaries  which  it  would  fain  obliterate  ?     To  sub- 
vert  authority,  say  you,  is   to   surrender  the   faith   to  all   the 
caprices  of  the  human  mind  ;   but  you  may  long  ransack  the 
annals  of  the  Reformation  before  you  shall  find  any  thing  there 
to  equal  the  lucubrations  of  your  mystics,  the  ecstasies  of  some, 
the  macerations  of  others,  the  stigmata  of  this  saint,  and  the  mir- 
acles of  that.     When  the  infidelity  of  the  last  century  gathered 
in  with  so  much  care  all  that  could  throw  ridicule  on  Christian- 
ity, on  what  field  did  it  collect  the  largest  harvest  ?      Besides, 
let  us  not  forget,  that  nothing  then  gleaned  in  the  field  of  the 
Reformation  had  ever  been  so  sanctioned  by  it,  as  to  make  it 
responsible  for  such  scandals ;  they  could  permanently  affect  the 
character  of  the  particular  sect  or  individual  only  that  was  guilty 
of  them.     But  you  have  canonized  by  hundreds  your  illuminati, 
your  innumerable  dreamers  of  every  age,  of  every  country,  and 
of  either  sex  ;  and  though  there  may  not  have  been  any  approval 
of  follies,  there  has  always  been  a  bond  of  attachment  which 
Rome  will  never  break.     While  interdicting  all  discussion  of  the 
essence  of  doctrines,  the  mind  has  been  allowed  a  frightful  lati- 
tude in  the  way  of  analyzing  them,  diving  into  them,  and  setting 
them  off  with  a  thousand  fancies.    What  has  been  lost  in  Hberty 
in  one  sense,  has  been  regained,  for  better  or  worse,  in  another ; 
and  the  Church  has  shut  her  eyes,  like  a  sovereign  who  allows 
his  subjects  to  sing,  provided  they  obey  and  pay.     What  a  strange 
book  might  be  made  by  collecting  the  products'  of  this  passive  and 
hampered  half-liberty  I    The  mind  of  man  cannot  remain  inactive. 
Authority,  while  it  prevented  it  straying  to  the  right,  was  com- 
pelled, by  doing  so,  to  tolerate  much  erratic  movement  on  the  left. 
"  Did  Protestants,"  says  Bossuet,  "  really  know  with  how  many 
variations  their  confessions  of  faith  have  been  framed,  that  Ref- 
ormation of  which  they  boast  would  inspire  them  only  with  con- 
tempt."^    We  could  Avish  that  some  one  would  explain  to  us, 
once  for  all,  what  is  proved,  in  good  logic,  by  the  argument 
drawn  from  the  variations  of  Protestantism.    When,  for  example, 
it  shall  have  been  demonstrated  that  Protestants  have  not  been 
all,  and  always,  agreed  on  the  subject  of  the  Eucharist,  what 

*  Preface  to  the  Variatioym. 
D 


•'/ 


14:  HISTORY    OF   THE    COUNCIL    OF   TRENT.  Book.  I. 

weight  will  this  have  taken  from  any  single  direct  argument  of 
theirs  against  the  mass  ?  When  it  shall  have  been  proved,  that 
with  a  pope  they  would  have  been  more  united,  in  what  will  this 
have  weakened  their  historical  and  doctrinal  attacks  against  the 
popedom  ?  ''  Before  accusing  us  of  variations,"  says  Bossuet 
again, ^  "  let  them  begin  with  clearing  themselves."  To  what 
purpose  ?  The  two  positions  are  totally  different.  After  having 
written  four  volumes  on  the  variations  of  Protestantism,  a  system 
of  liberty,  you  have  made  less  progress  than  he  who  shall  have 
found  a  sinj^le  variation  in  E.oman  Catholicism,  a  svstem  of  au- 
thority  and  infallible  unity. 

With  liberty,  any  party  whatever — individual,  congregation, 
or  people,  that  momentarily  loses  the  true  doctrines  of  the  Bible, 
never  loses,  at  least,  the  thread  by  which  it  may  be  ]ed  back  to 
them.  The  Roman  Catholic,  if  he  reject  one  single  error  of  his 
Church,  must  break  with  a  past,  extending  over  twelve  centu- 
ries— must  repudiate  a  whole  world  of  traditions,  and  sever  ties 
of  every  kind.  The  child  of  the  Reformation,  should  his  ances- 
tors have  erred,  is  not  ri vetted  by  any  such  chain  to  their  errors  ; 
these  had  not  at  their  side,  like  the  Roman  Catholic's  ancestors, 
an  immutable  power  ready  to  stereotype  all  their  imaginations. 
In  all  churches  it  may  constantly  happen  that  Christianity  may 
be  mingled  M'ith  more  or  less  alloy,  according  to  times  and  places. 
With  authority,  the  alloy  and  the  metal  are  thrown  into  one ;  it 
would  be  rebellion  and  sacrilege  to  separate  them.  With  liber- 
ty, the  alloy,  should  any  remain,  ever  lies  in  the  crucible  of  the 
Bible,  and  is  ever  subject  to  the  action  of  that  divine  fire  which 
alone  is  capable  of  separating  it  and  expelling  it. 

This  operation,  which  Rome  does  not  desire,  should  be  left  to 
proceed  of  itself  with  the  aid  of  the  Bible  ;  she  must,  wherever 
she  is  not  as  much  mistress  of  men's  bodies  as  she  desires  to  be 
of  their  souls,  allow  to  proceed  of  itself,  and  that,  too  often,  under 
the  empire  of  the  most  untoward  passions.  Do  people  suppose 
that  Voltaire,  had  he  had  the  Bible  put  into  his  hands  from  his 
earliest  years,  even  admitting  that  he  might  have  become  an  in- 
fidel, would  have  persecuted  it  so  ruthlessly  ?  Witness  Rousseau, 
who  at  bottom  believed  in  the  Bible  no  more  than  Voltaire  did. 
A  Protestant  may  become  an  unbeliever,  but  not  an  impious 
blasphemer.  He  may  abandon,  he  may  attack  Christianity,  but 
he  will  not  hate  it ;  he  will  not  call  it  the  infamous  icretch 
{rinfame) ;  he  will  not  insist  on  crushing  it  {I'ecraser).  Without 
the  deplorable  identity  which  authority  had  established  between 
that  of  the  Bible  and  that  of  Rome,  never  should  ignorance, 
never  should  dishonesty,  have  gone  so  far  as  to  charge  religion 
itself  with  whatever  might  be  found  ridiculous,  or  odious,  iw  its 

*  Prefa'ce  to  the  Variations. 


Chap.  IV.  ijlO.     TMTV    DESIRAHLE— IS    IT   NECESSARY?  76 

history.  Eslablished  for  the  purpose  of  conservation,  autliority 
behoves  to  preserve  everythiiif^,  and  this  is  the  greatest  evil  she 
has  done  to  rehgion  and  to  herself.  At  the  present  day,  among 
so  many  new  obstacles,  docs  any  believe  that  she  would  not 
think  herself  all  too  happy  could  she  but  lay  down  part  of  the 
burthen  which  she  has  bound  herself  to  carry  to  the  end  of  time  ? 
She  does  in  fact  so  far  make  it  lighter,  by  the  care  with  which 
she  allows  so  many  ideas  to  fall  out  of  notice,  the  mere  announce- 
ment of  which  would  ruin  her  for  ever  ;  but  all  that  she  thus 
abandons  without  its  being  perceived,  we  are  entitled  to  gather 
up  and  replace  on  her  shoulders,  and  at  the  same  time  to  repeat 
to  her,  that  unless  she  would  repudiate  herself,  she  must  take  it 
with  her  to  the  last. 

But,  we  arc  told,  without  authority  there  can  be  no  unity. 

This  argument,  from  which  so  much  is  attempted  to  be  drawn 
every  day,  is,  in  itself,  the  most  incorrect  of  the  three.  It  as- 
sumes as  admitted  and  incontrovertible  what  has  first  of  all  to 
be  demonstrated.  Has  it  entered  into  God's  purpose  that  there 
should  be  an  entire  unity  of  faith  in  the  Church  ?  This  is  the 
question.  Authority  is  required  to  maintain  unity.  Be  it  so. 
But  is  unity  itself  necessary  ? 

Let  us  not  be  misunderstood.  That  it  is  desirable,  infinitely 
desirable  ;  that  we  ought  to  be  disposed  to  concur  towards  it 
with  all  our  efibrts,  all  our  prayers,  all  the  concessions  that  con- 
science will  permit,  is  what  we  suppose  none  will  deny.  Who 
doubts  or  ever  doubted  it  ?  A  Church  at  once  zealous  and 
peaceable,  is  one  of  the  most  ravishing  spectacles  the  earth  can 
present ;  and  the  day  on  which  all  Christians  shall  unite  to  form 
but  one  will  be  the  brightest  that  shall  ever  have  shone  on  this 
scene  of  discords  and  contentions. 

But  Avhat  do  we  say  ?  The  brightest  of  days  has  already 
shone  on  the  world.  It  was  the  day  on  which  the  earth  beheld 
the  arrival  of  Him  who  was  announced  as  the  Saviour  of  men  ; 
of  tnen,  mark  well  the  word,  that  is  to  say,  of  every  man,  of 
every  soul.  What  is  the  Church,  after  all  ?  The  Church,  in 
the  eye  of  God,  means  the  individuals  who  go  to  compose  it;  for 
it,  as  the  Church,  no  more  than  for  a  nation  as  nation,  is  there 
responsibility,  or  judgment,  or  a  future,  or  a  paradise,  or  hell. 
Promises  and  threatenings,  all  that  you  read  in  the  Scripture,  all 
that  you  hear  from  the  mouth  of  Gospel  preachers,  all  is  from 
time  to  time  pressed  in  vain  under  a  collective  form  ;  there  does 
not,  and  there  cannot  exist  any  responsibility  but  that  of  the  in- 
dividual. Rehgion,  let  people  do  what  they  please,  remains  an 
afiair  between  each  hidividual  and  God.     If  my  rehgion  be  in 


V6  HISTORY   OF  THE   COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  I. 

conformity  with  that  of  my  fellow-citizens,  so  much  the  better, 
and  I  ought  to  wish  it  may  be  so  ;  if  it  be  not,  it  is  an  evil,  an 
evil  which  I  ought  to  combat,  as  far  as  may  be,  with  charity 
and  forbearance  ;  but  any  real,  direct,  logical  relation  between 
the  salvation  of  my  soul  and  the  greater  or  less  conformity  there 
may  be  betwixt  their  views  and  mine,  is  what  I  cannot  in  the 
least  perceive.  United  or  not  united  with  others  in  this  world, 
each  of  us  will  not  the  less  be  judged  alone,  condemned  alone, 
saved  alone.  Though  unity  have  important  advantages,  though 
it  powerfully  concur  towards  obtaining  many  of  the  objects  of 
religion  here  below,  such  as  union,  peace  and  civil  order — it  is 
not  the  less  clear,  that  it  is  not  indispensable  as  respects  the 
first,  the  greatest  of  all  those  objects — the  essential  object,  the 
sanctification  and  salvation  of  each  individual  soul. 

If  it  is  not  indispensable,  nothing  authorizes  us  to  affirm  that 
Grod  behoves  to  have  desired  it.  And  now,  have  we  facts  to 
support  the  affirmation  that  God  has  desired  it  ? 

"  Grod  is  holy.  God  has  made  man.  God,  therefore,  must  have 
desired  that  man  should  be  holy  and  should  remain  holy."  Such 
is  the  reasoning,  the  falseness  of  which,  we  have  already  said, 
cannot  be  logically  demonstrated.  What,  then,  should  we  do  to 
refute  it  ?  We  should  say — "  Evil  exists.  There  are  vices,  there 
are  crimes.  Then,  God  has  not  wished  that  there  should  not 
be  either  vices  or  crimes."  Why  has  he  not  wished  that  there 
should  be  neither  ?  This  we  cannot  tell.  There  stands  the  fact ; 
the  argument  to  the  contrary  vanishes.   Facto  cedit  argitmentuin. 

Well,  then,  when  we  see  the  Christian  world  so  profoundly 
divided,  when  we  see  all  that  is  factitious  in  the  Roman  unity, 
and  all  that  is  atrocious  in  the  means  which  it  has  been  found 
necessary,  nevertheless,  to  employ  for  maintaining  that  unity  for 
good  or  evil ;  when  we  say  to  ourselves  that  so  many  anxious 
thoughts,  so  much  vigilance,  so  much  blood,  have  not  prevented 
Rome  from  losing  a  third,  almost  the  half  of  Europe,  and  that 
a  reduplication  of  horrors  was  required  in  order  to  shut  the  gates 
of  Spain  and  Italy  on  the  Reformation,  countries  the  conquest 
of  which  would  have  been  the  death  of  Roman  Catholicism — 
we  think  it  proved  to  demonstration  that  unity,  meaning  thereby 
the  system  to  which  that  name  is  given,  is  a  human  invention, 
a  mere  dream,  very  fine  in  theory,  often  most  hideous  in  prac- 
tice, and  the  realization  of  which,  if  it  is  to  take  place  at  all, 
pertains  only  to  the  Great  Master  of  all  hearts. 

The  question,  then,  remains  entire.  Nothing  proves  to  us,  in 
theory,  either  the  authority  or  the  infallibility  of  the  council. 
Let  us  see  how  far  it  will  itself  prove  it  by  its  decrees  and  the 
history  of  its  decrees. 


BOOK  11. 

HISTORY  OF  THE  COUNCIL  FROM  ITS  THIRD  SESSION"  (154G) 
TO  ITS  REMOVAL  FROM  TRENT  (154V). 


CHAPTER    I. 

(1546.) 

SESSION  IV.   DECREES  ON  THE  RULE  OF  FAITH,  THE  CANON  AND 
USE  OF  SCRIPTURE,  AND  THE  VULGATE. 

Homage  to  tlie  Bible — What  is  Tradition — Limits  to  credibility — "What 
the  Fathers  thought  of  it;  and  the  councils — What  it  had" hitherto 
been — Papal  aberration — Of  what  is  Holy  Scripture  composed — 
Why  had  this  still  to  be  decided — The  divines  at  the  council — The 
Apocrypha — Three  opinions — Strange  omnipotence — The  Vulgate — 
Its  history  down  to  the  time  of  the  council — ^The  decree  would  admit 
no  delay — Results — The  Vulgate  as  it  stands — Whose  province  is 
it  to  interpret  Scripture — Demi-liberalism — Absolute  bondage — The 
god  of  Epicurus — Historical  question — The  Old  Testament — The  New 
— The  Fathers — The  last  of  the  Fathers — ^Saint  Augustine  and  the 
Bible  Societies — A  false  quotation — Decree  on  the  reading  and  the 
interpretation  of  the  Bible — Fate  of  this  decree  in  the  hands  of  the 
popes — Deadly  Pastures — Port-Royal — Libert}^  in  Roman  Catholic- 
ism— Sophisms — Difficulties  in  drawing  up  the  decree — ^The  Anath- 
emas— Historical  aspect  of  the  case — Hesitations  in  the  council — 
Decrees  on  the  faith — Decrees  on  reformation — Alarms — Precautions 
— Fourth  Session — ^The  pope's  confirmation — What  had  been  gained 
— Perpetual  compromise — External  difficulties. 

The  selection  that  had  been  made  of  the  subjects  that  were 
first  to  be  treated  by  the  Council,  implied  an  homage,  no  doubt 
very  involuntarily  paid,  to  the  supreme  authority  of  the  Bible, 
and  to  the  opinions  of  the  man  whose  recent  death  had  been 
thought  so  auspicious.  Met  for  the  purpose  of  systematically 
arranging  and  fixing  the  Church's  creed,  why  should  not  the 
council  have,  first  of  all,  defined  the  right  in  virtue  of  wliich 
they  were  to  proceed  to  do  so  ?  This  question,  like  that  of  the 
relative  position  of  the  pope,  was  not  yet  so  clear  but  that  manv 
of  the  faithful,  those  even  most  disposed  to  obedience,  would 
have  been  liappy  to  receive  some  new  light  upon  it.  But  with 
whatever  sincerity  the  assembled  prelates  may  have  behevcd  in 


/ 


is  HISTORY   OF   THE   COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  U. 

the  divine  authority  of  their  mission,  they  could  not  fail  to  see 
how  strange  it  would  have  looked  for  them  to  issue  a  declara- 
tion, amounting  in  fine  to  this — "  "VYe  are  infallible,  because  we 
affirm  that  we  are  mfallible,  and  our  affirmation  is  true,  be- 
cause we  are  infallible/'  An  inevitable  sophism,  with  regard 
to  which,  as  well  as  many  others,  men  may  indeed  delude  them- 
selves, but  which,  even  insincerely,  one  would  hardly  venture 
openly  to  propound. 

The  assembly,  therefore,  passed  at  once  (in  the  congregation 
of  February  22,  1546)  to  the  question  which  ought  to  have  stood 
second — "What  is  the  source  of  the  faith?"  And  to  this  the 
reply  had  to  be — "  It  is  Scripture."  Luther  could  hardly  have 
spoken  better. 

This,  accordingly,  was  not  the  point  at  which  it  stopped.  Is 
it  Scripture  alone  ?  A  Roman  council  which  should  reply. 
Yes  I  and  which  at  the  same  time  would  prove  its  consistency, 
could  have  had  no  other  course  than  to  break  np  and  disperse. 
The  reply,  therefore,  as  might  be  expected,  w^as  this — Scripture 
and  Tradition. 

But  what  is  tradition  ?  Nothing  more  easy  to  define,  pro- 
vided you  keep  to  vague  description.  The  New  Testament  is 
not  a  large  book.  But  the  apostles  spoke  and  preached  ior  a 
course  of  years  and  in  many  churches ;  it  follows,  therefore,  that 
we  do  not  possess  in  writing  all  the  words  that  fell  fix)m  their 
lips.  Several  of  the  apostles  even  wrote  nothing ;  nothing  at 
least  that  we  possess.  Tradition,  consequently,  is  the  entire 
body  of  those  apostolic  instructions  and  facts  which  have  been 
transmitted,  or  were  capable  of  being  transmitted,  otherwise 
than  by  writing,  otherwise  than  by  the  New  Testament,  in  the 
state  in  which  it  has  reached  us. 

Here  all,  it  will  be  observed,  seems  very  simple ;  and  yet 
even  here,  without  departing  from  the  vagueness  in  which  peo- 
ple would  appear  to  be  so  nearly  agreed,  we  find  already,  if  not 
positive  objections,  at  least  improbabilities,  of  little  less  weight 
than  arguments.  That  the  apostles  may  have  given  expression, 
in  their  oral  discourses,  to  ideas  which  unhappily  Ave  do  not  find 
in  their  v^aitings,  is  possible ;  still,  it  is  very  little  probable  that 
a  single  truth  of  any  importance  can  have  been  omitted  in  four 
gospels  and  so  many  epistles.  But  this  possibility  has  limits, 
and  very  narrow  limits  too.  Had  the  worship  of  the  Virgin, 
for  example,  occupied  in  the  primitive  Church,  we  do  not  say 
the  place  it  has  at  this  day  in  the  Roman  Church,  but  any 
place,  however  insignificant,  can  it  be  admitted  that  the  apos- 
tles would  have  failed  to  say  one  Avord  about  it  ?  Utterly  im- 
probable this  would  be,  had  even  no  more  of  their  writings  come 


Chap.  I.  IMG.  WHAT    IS   TR.\DITIC)N  ?  19 

down  to  US  tliuii  four  or  five  epistles,  of  four  or  five  pages  each. 
Were  the  primacy  of  Rome  and  of  the  pope  an  apostohc  idea, 
who  shall  explain  to  us  how  St.  Paul  could  have  written,  from 
Rome  itself,  to  several  important  churches,  without  making  the 
slightest  mention  of  any  tie  established,  or  to  be  established, 
betwixt  theni  and  it?  Shall  it  be  said  that  God  has  thus  per- 
mitted it,  and  that  it  is  not  ibr  us  to  ask  why  ?  God  has  per- 
mitted it  I  Still  this  would  not  be  enough.  In  order  to  their 
having  been  able  to  omit  things  of  so  much  importance,  it  is  not 
enoagh  that  God  may  have  permitted  it ;  it  must  be  maintained 
that  he  himself  commanded  their  silence  in  such  a  case. 

Is  tradition  at  least  favourable  to  itself?  And  could  we  for- 
get the  evil  that  Scripture  says  of  it,^  does  it  appear  in  the  Fa- 
thers, and  in  the  decrees  of  the  first  councils,  with  a  part  at 
least  of  that  supreme  authority  which  it  was  to  assume  at 
Trent  ? 

No.  Never  did  Luther  or  Calvin  appeal  more  formally  to 
Scripture,  and  to  Scripture  alone,  than  did  the  authors  of  the 
four  first  centuries.  "  This  gospel,"  says  one  of  them,  "  was 
first  preached  by  the  apostles  ;  then,  by  the  ivill  of  God,  they 
wrote  it,  in  order  that  it  might  become  the  foundation  and  the 
pillar  of  our  faith."  AVho  is  it  that  speaks  thus?  Why,  it  is 
Irenseus,"  a  disciple  of  a  disciple  of  St.  John.  He  who  had  re- 
ceived the  instructions  of  an  apostle  so  fresh  from  their  first 
source;  he  it  is,  further,  who  thus  writes  in  a  homily-^ — "We 
must  necessarily  appeal  to  the  testimony  of  the  Scriptures,  ivitli- 
out  ivhich  our  discourses  are  entitled  to  no  credit.'' 
-  "Let  the  disciples  of  Hermogenes,"  says  TertuUian,*  "shew 
that  what  they  teach  is  written  ;  and  if  it  be  not  written,  let 
them  tremble  at  the  anathema  pronounced  on  whosoever  takes 
from  or  adds  to  Scripture." 

"It  is  necessary,"  says  St.  Basil, ^  "that  every  one  instruct 
himself,  by  means  of  the  divine  Scriptures,  in  the  necessary 
verities,  both  that  he  may  make  progress  in  piety,  and  not  ac- 
custom himself  to  human  traditions What  is  written,  do 

thou  believe  ;   what  is  not  written,  seek  thou  not  after." 

"  If  you  take  away,  or  add  ought,"  says  St.  Ambrose,^  "this 

seems  to  be  a  prevarication When  the  Scriptures  do  not 

speak,  who  shall  speak  ?  ' 

And  now,  mark  what  Augustine  says — "  Let  us  not  stop  at 
what  I  have  said,  or  you  have  said,  but  at  Avhat  the  Lord  hath 

^  Matt.  XV.  3,  6,  9.  -  Against  heresies,  b.  iii.  1. 

'  Homilv  I.  on  Jeremiah.  *  Ac/ahist  Hermog.,  ch.  xxi. 

*  Moral  Rules,  Quest.  O.").     Homily  on  the  Trinity. 
'  On  Paradise,  ch.  xii.      On  the  calling  of  the  Gentiles,  ii.  3. 


80  HISTORY   OF  THE    COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  H. 

said.     We  have  the  Lord's  books there  let  us  look  for  the 

Church."! 

Mark  Chrysostom  :  "  When  impious  heresy  shall  occupy  the 
churches,  know  that  then  there  will  be  no  proof  of  true  faith, 
but  by  Holy  Scripture.  Have  recourse,  therefore,  only  to  it,  for 
those  who  go  elsewhere  shall  perish. "^ 

In  fine,  to  that  oft-repeated  assertion,  that  there  behoves  to 
have  been  some  means  of  preserving  what  was  written  by  the 
apostles,  it  is  Augustine  again  who  Avill  lend  us  his  answer. 
"  Under  pretext  of  the  Lord's  having  said,  '  I  have  yet  more 
things  to  say  to  you,'  heretics  try  to  give  a  plausible  colour  to 
their  inventions.  But  if  the  Lord  has  not  said,  who  among  us 
will  venture  to  say.  It  is  this,  it  is  that  I  And  if  he  is  rash 
enough  to  say  it,  how  will  he  prove  it  ?  And  who  will  be  pre- 
sumptuous enough  to  affirm,  without  any  divine  testimony,  that 
what  he  says,  even  although  it  were  true,  is  precisely  what  the 
Lord  meant  to  say."-^  Does  the  author,  doubtless,  proceed  to 
add,  that  though  individuals  have  no  such  right,  yet  the  Church 
has  it  ?  No  ;  there  is  not  a  word  of  restriction.  The  expres- 
sions are  as  precise,  as  absolute  as  possible.  And  if  he  grant 
elsewhere,  as  was  quite  natural  at  that  epoch,  a  certain  author- 
ity to  traditions  guarded  by  certain  warranties,  these  lines,  as 
well  as  many  others,  sufficiently  prove  that  he  had  no  faith, 
either  in  infallible  traditions,  or  in  the  possibility  of  discerning 
them  infallibly.  Athanasius,  before  him,  had  been  still  more  pre- 
cise.    "  The  Scriptures  suffice,  of  themselves  alone,  for  making 

known  the  truth We  are  resolved  to  listen  to  nothing,  to 

say  nothing,  beyond  what  has  been  Avritten It  is  a  mock- 

erj'^to  raise  questions  or  discussions  on  what  has  not  been  writ- 
ten."* 

Thus  did  the  hero  of  the  Council  of  Nice  express  himself. 
Do  we  find  any  trace  of  that  council  and  those  following  having 
thought  otherwise  ?  Not  the  smallest.  It  was  not  until  the 
sixth  ^  that  it  was  decided  to  be  necessary  to  recur,  in  case  of 
need,  to  sources  not  written.  This  must  not  be  understood,  it 
is  true,  as  if  people  had  never  yet  allowed  themselves  to  recur 
to  these ;  but  as  little  do  we  find  anything  that  approaches  to 
an  official  recognition  of  them  ;  and  the  passages  we  have 
adduced  sufficiently  shew  how  far  they  were  from  anything  of 
the  sort.     The  decrees  of  Nice,   Ephesus,  and  Chalcedon,  are 

^  Oyi  the  Unity  of  the  Chxirch.  -  Homily  XLIX,  on  St.  Matthew. 

^  Ninety-seventh  Treatise  on  St.  John. 

*  Against  the  Gentiles.      Treatise  ou  the  Incarnation — Epistle  to 
Serapion, 

^  (Constantinople  in  680. 


Chap.  I.  1546.  OLD    OPINION.S    ON   TRADITION.  81 

framed  as  resting  on  Scripture  alone,  and  as  being  incompetent 
to  rest  on  anything  but  tScripture ;  if  here  and  there  we  find 
appeals  to  tradition,  it  is  never  except  in  the  form  of  an  acces- 
sory ;  the  council  would  never  have  had  the  idea  of  proving 
anything  by  it  that  should  not  have  been  sufficiently  demon- 
strated already.  Now,  even  had  the  Church  all  the  power  that 
Romanists  arrogate  for  her,  still  it  would  be  matter  of  doubt  if 
she  could  exercise  that  power  in  favour  of  tradition.  Not  to 
grant  it  in  the  first  ages,  and  at  a  short  distance  from  its 
sources,  more  than  a  restricted  and  conditional  authority,  was 
this  not  tantamount  to  interdicting  herself  from  granting  it  any 
more  a  thousand  years  after  ?  There  is  no  middle  position  : 
either  tradition  has  always  been  one  of  the  legitimate  sources  of 
the  faith,  and  then  we  beg  to  know  why  the  fathers  made  so 
little  account  of  it ;  or  it  was  not  so  originally,  and  then,  being 
human  and  alterable,  it  never  could  be  so. 

Whatever,  in  point  of  fact,  it  from  of  old  had  been,  its  position, 
in  point  of  right,  had  never  been  regulated.  Popes,  doctors, 
councils,  had  vied  with  each  other  in  drawing  from  it ;  but  on 
this  point  there  did  not  exist,  as  yet,  either  special  decrees  or 
precise  rules.  As  for  rules,  no  one  could  dream  of  making  them  , 
for  how  could  it  be  exactly  determined  at  what  degree  of  credi- 
bility a  point  of  tradition  shall  become  an  article  of  faith  ?  As 
for  a  special  decree,  one  was  made,  but  not  without  difficulty. 
However  accustomed  people  had  become  to  regard  tradition 
with  as  much,  and  even  more  respect  than  Scripture,  many  felt 
reluctant  to  declare  this.  The  way  had  first  been  opened  by 
the  Council  of  Florence,  but  in  1441,  at  a  time  when  it  was 
disorganized,  and  when  doubts  might  have  been  felt  as  to  the 
validity  of  its  decrees ;  besides,  that  was  not  a  council-general, 
and  its  sentence  could  not  be  held  as  definitive.  Several  bishops, 
accordingly,  gave  expression  to  their  scruples.  A  few  went  so 
far  as  to  call  for  a  decree  declaring  the  inferiority  of  tradition, 
when  it  was  suggested  that  it  were  better  not  to  say  anything 
about  it.  Those  even  who  desired  as  explicit  and  as  favourable  a 
decree  as  possible,  were  far  from  being  agreed  on  what  should 
be  inserted  in  it.  The  very  word  tradition,  in  the  vague  and 
absolute  sense  which  it  has  since  taken,  was  then  unknown. 
People  did  not  say  tradition,  but  the  traditions,  and  this  plural 
seemed  to  require  that  they  should  be  enumerated,  that  they 
should  be  arranged  at  least  under  several  heads,  for  the  council 
could  not  reasonably  seem  to  sanction,  with  their  eyes  open, 
every  kind  of  tradition.  The  discussion  accordingly  was  very 
long.  Sarpi  and  Pallavicini  are  not  at  all  agreed  in  the  de- 
tails they  have  given ;  but  the  latter  says,  that  "  there  were 


82  HISTORY   OF   THE  COUNCIL   OF    TRENT.  Book  H. 

almost  as  many  opinions  as  there  were  heads. "^  Let  us  pass 
over  the  details,  then,  curious  as  they  are.  Let  us  do  no  more 
than  remark  how  far  these  tentative  efforts  are  from  indicating 
that  confidence  with  which  "tradition"  is  now  spoken  of  by 
Romanists,  as  a  Protestant  would  speak  of  "  Scripture,"  or  as  an 
advocate  speaks  of  "  the  law." 

It  is  true,  that  on  the  decision  being  once  taken,  Rome  was 
not  slow  to  give  precision,  for  her  own  interest,  to  what  the 
council  had  left  in  it  vague  and  obscure.  The  council  went  no 
farther  than  to  say,  "that  the  truth  being  in  the  traditions  as 
well  as  in  Scripture,  they  were  received  with  equal  piety. "^ 
Equality — this  was  a  great  step  ;  but  it  was  not  enough.  Al- 
ready, in  1520,  Prierio,  one  of  the  first  theologians  of  Leo  X., 
had  said,  "  He  is  a  heretic  whosoever  does  not  rest  on  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Roman  Church,  and  of  the  Roman  pontiff,  as  the 
infallible  rule  of  iaith,  from  ivhich  Holy  Scripture  itself  derives 
its  force  and  its  authority.^''  A  year  after  the  close  of  the 
council,  a  bull  of  Pius  IV.  fixes  the  oath  to  be  taken  by  all 
ecclesiastics.  "  I  admit,"  they  behoved  to  say,  "  I  firmly  em- 
brace the  apostolic  and  ecclesiastical  traditions,  and  all  the  con- 
stitutions of  the  mother  Church  ;  onor cover,  I  admit  holy  Scrip- 
ture, according  to  the  sense  which  the  said  Church  holds,  and 
has  held,  to  which  Church  it  appertains  to  judge,"  &c.  More- 
over !  Here  we  see  the  principal  formally  become  the  acces- 
sory. The  door  was  opened  ;  divines  rushed  into  it ;  and  ere 
long  you  will  see  them  as  far  removed  from  the  decree  itself  of 
Trent,  as  that  decree  had  been  already  from  the  view  entertain- 
ed by  the  fathers.  "  "We  shall  endeavour  to  demonstrate,"  says 
_Bellarmine,^  "  that  the  Scriptures  without  the  traditions  are 
rTeither  sufficient,  nor  simply  necessary T  "  Tradition  is  the 
foundation  of  the  Scriptures,"  says  Baronius,^  "  and  surpasses 
them  in  this,  to  wit,  that  the  Scriptures  cannot  subsist  unless 
fortified  by  tradition,  whereas  tradition  has  sufficient  force  with- 
out Scripture."  "  The  excellence  of  the  non-written  word," 
says  another,^  "  far  surpasses  that  of  the  Scriptures Tra- 
dition comprises  in  itself  all  truth We  ought  not  to  ap- 
peal from  it  to  any  other  judge."  And  Lindanus  :"  "  Scripture 
is  a  nose  of  wax,  a  dead  letter,  and  that  kills,  a  very  husk  with- 
out a  kernel,  a  leaden  rule,  a  school  for  heretics,  a  forest  that 
serves  as  a  refuge  for  robbers."      Chrysostom,  Augustine,  where 

^  Book  vi.  ch.  xi. 

^  Necnon  traditiones  ipsas  ....  pari  pietatis  affectu  ac  reveratione 
suscipit  et  veneratur. 

^  A  qua  etiam  Scriptura  sacra  robiir  traliit  et  aiictoritateni. 

*  On  the  Word  of  God,  b.  iv.  cli.  iv.       ^  Annals,  year  58,  No.  11. 

^  Coster,  Enchiridion,  ch.  i.  '  Panoplia,  books  i.  and  vi. 


Chap.  I.  1546.  THE    CANON    OF    SCRIPTURE.  83 

are  you  ?  Can  you  believe  that  it  is  a  Christian  who  thus 
speaks,  and  not  rattier  a  pagan,  who  of  set  purpose  takes  the  direct 
opposite  of  what  you  used  daily  to  inculcate  on  your  flocks  ? 

Thus  had  the  council  broken  down  the  last  remaining  bridge 
that  spanned  the  abyss  between  the  Reformation  and  Rome. 
Tradition,  "that  impenetrable  buckler  of  Ajax,"  as  Lindanus 
also  says,  had  been  declared  to  be  of  the  same  tissue  with  the 
buckler  of  the  enemies  of  Rome,  and  that  "  after  the  example 
of  the  orthodox  fathers,"  said  the  decree.  The  passages,  accord- 
ingly, ^vhich  we  have  borrowed  from  them,  figure  among  those 
which  the  Inquisition  was  afterwards  audacious  enough  to  order 
to  be  efiaced  irom  their  works. ^ 

Scripture  had  been  named.  The  council  was  called  upon  to 
state  precisely  where  it  was  to  be  found,  and  what  the  books  are 
which  compose  it. 

How  happened  it  that  such  questions  still  remained  to  be  de- 
cided ?  To  be  infallible,  and  to  remain  for  fifteen  centuries  with- 
out saying  precisely  what  went  to  make  up  the  Bible,  was,  on 
the  Church's  part,  either  a  singular  forgetfulness  of  her  mission, 
or  a  singular  avowal  of  her  impotence.  And  one  cannot  say 
here,  that  if  she  had  neglected  to  pronounce,  it  was  because  there 
was  no  doubt  on  the  subject.  The  discussion  showed  that  there 
was  more  than  one. 

For  the  rest  this  is  an  objection  which  we  might  renew  on 
many  occasions.  Does  not  the  Church,  in  arrogating  to  herself 
this  absolute  right  of  teaching,  and  of  being  the  only  teacher, 
authorize  us  to  demand  of  her  a  reckoning  of  what  she  has  not 
done,  as  well  as  of  what  she  has  done  ?  An  infallible  authority 
charged  with  the  regulation  of  the  faith,  and  a  fundamental 
question  that  has  remained  for  ages  doubtful,  will  always,  people 
may  say  what  they  will,  present  a  contradiction.  We  shall  re- 
turn to  it  again.  What  is  certain  is,  that  on  the  7th  of  April, 
1546,  the  day  before  that  on  which  the  council's  decision  came 
to  be  known,  there  was  not"  a  single  Roman  Catholic  in  the 
whole  world  that  could  tell,  either  of  his  own  authority,  for  none 
had  the  right  to  do  so,  or  on  his  Church's  part,  seeing  she  had 
never  formally  pronounced  her  opinion — the  exact  number  of 
the  canonical  books.  "  Many,"  says  Pallavicini,  '•  lived  in  the 
most  distressing  ignorance  with  regard  to  this  ;  the  same  book 
being  adored  by  some  as  the  expression  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and 

*  See  the  Indices  Expxirgatorii,  published  in  Spain  and  in  Italy  in 
consequence  of  a  decree  of  the  eighteenth  session.  An  edition  of  Au- 
gustine published  at  A^enice  in  1584,  omits  all  the  passages  favourable 
to  Protestants.  "  Curavimus  removeri,"  say  the  editors  "  ea  omnia  guce 
fidelium  mentes  haretica  pravitate  possent  inficerc." 


84  HISTORY   OF  THE   COUNCIL   OF  TRENT  Book  XL 

execrated  by  others  as  the  work  of  a  sacrilegious  impostor." 
The  divisions  of  Protestants  on  this  subject  have  never  gone 
nearly  so  far  as  this. 

The  discussion  was  warm,  and  even  in  some  respects  suffi- 
ciently learned,  but  not  on  the  part  of  the  bishops.  Pallavicini, 
at  this  very  place,  would  fain  make  them  out  to  have  been  men 
of  high  theological  capacity.  He  mentions  as  men  of  particular 
ability  the  three  legates,  two  other  cardinals,  and  the  heads  of 
religious  orders  ;^  for  the  rest,  he  is  obliged  to  say,  without  men- 
tioning names,  that  they  were  the  elite  of  the  bishops.  Why 
the  elite  ?  There  was  no  choice  ;  most  of  them  were,  and  still 
continue  to  be,  unknown  to  the  theological  world.  Their  hesi- 
tations, their  embarrassments  in  a  multitude  of  cases,  their  perpet- 
ual recourse  to  divines  by  profession,  all  being  things  which  Pal- 
lavicini does  not  attempt  to  deny,  sufficiently  refute  his  assertion. 

Here,  then,  should  be  the  place  for  noticing  the  intervention 
of  that  other  class  of  members,  the  divines,  who  had  been  called 
to  the  council  for  the  purpose  of  elucidating  the  questions  under 
discussion,  but  without  voting,  that  privilege  being  exclusively 
confined  to  bishops,  mitred  abbots,  and  the  heads  of  religious 
orders.  From  the  first  sessions  there  had  been  for  some  time 
thirty ;  their  number  was  at  all  times  much  about  the  same  as 
that  of  the  voting  members.  Were  we  not  too  tired  of  the  sub- 
ject to  return  again  to  the  question  of  infallibility,  viewed  in  the 
relation  to  forms,  we  might  be  tempted  to  ask  if  their  presence 
accorded  with  the  spirit  of  the  system  in  virtue  of  which  the 
body  of  bishops  is  alone  infallible  ;  with  the  spirit  we  say,  for,  as 
respects  the  letter,  the  reply  would  be,  that  they  did  not  vote. 
A  great  many  questions  were,  in  fact,  handed  over  to  them  ;  the 
majority  of  votes  was  in  many  instances  determined  by  the  con- 
fidence reposed  in  their  Matements.  The  bishops  were,  doubt- 
less, right  in  collecting  all  the  elucidations  possible  ;  but  one 
can  hardly  understand  how  a  court  should  remain  incapable  of 
error,  and  yet  pronounce  its  seiitences  according  to  the  opinions 
of  certain  adepts  who  are  not  infallible. 

Nevertheless,  in  the  question  of  the  canonical  books,  the  contrary 
was  about  to  take  place,  for  in  that  case  the  decision  came  from  the 
bishops.     Let  us  see  how  far  this  was  to  the  honour  of  the  council. 

The  divines  were  unanimous  in  recognizing  the  inferiority  of 
the  books  which  Protestants  regarded  then,  and  still  regard,  as 
apocryphal.^     Could  they  hesitate  ?    Josephus,  Eusebius,  Origen, 

^  There  Tt'ere,  then,  eight  at  the  council,  and  five  of  lliese  •were  of 
mendicant  orders.  "When  we  speak  of  the  members  under  tlie  general 
name  of  bishops,  the  chiefs  of  the  orders  are  meant  to  be  included. 

^  Tobit,  Judith,  Esther,  Maccabees,  <tc. 


Chap.  I.  154G.     THE   APOCRYPIIALS   PRONOUNCED   CANONICAL.  85 

Atliauasius,  Epiphaiiius,  Cyril,  Gregory  of  Naziaiizcn,  Hilary  of 
Poictiers,  Augustine,^  Jerome  above  all,  lie  who  of  all  the  Fa- 
thers had  laboured  most  on  the  Bible,  speak  of  it  as  a  generally 
acknowledged  fact ;  and  if,  after  all  that  these  have  said,  there 
is  still  some  room  for  discussion  as  to  the  views  they  entertained 
of  such  or  such  a  particular  book  of  those  in  question,  it  is  not 
the  less  beyond  doubt  that  they  all  believed  in  the  non-authen- 
ticity of  some,  and  the  inferiority  of  all. 

Such,  then,  was  the  state  of  matters  ;  but  this  unanimity  on 
the  part  of  the  divines  did  not  extend  to  their  being  agreed  as 
to  the  rank  to  be  assigned  to  those  books  in  the  Bible.  Some 
wanted  a  simple  statement  of  their  inferiority  without  determ- 
ining the  degree  ;  others  that  they  should  be  divided  into  two 
classes,  one  of  which  should  serve  as  an  intermediate  betM'een 
those  universally  admitted  as  canonical,  and  the  apocryphal 
which  had  been  generally  reputed  as  doubtful.  A  third  party 
merely  required  that  there  should  simply  be  a  list  drawn  up, 
without  explanation,  of  all  the  books  ;  and,  last  of  all,  a  fourth, 
consisting  of  but  a  feeble  minority  among  the  divines,  without 
denying  that  the  apocryphals  had  held  hitherto  a  more  or  less 
inferior  rank,  proposed  to  put  an  end  to  the  matter  by  declaring 
them  canonical. 

"Will  it  be  believed  ?  The  last  of  these  opinions  carried  the 
day.  This  was  to  trample  under  foot  the  testimony  of  twenty 
Fathers  ;  it  was  to  deny  the  superabundantly  demonstrated  fact 
that  the  ancient  Jews  did  not  believe  in  the  canonicity  of  those 
books  ;  it  was  to  brave  the  general  opinion  of  the  Roman  Cath- 
olics, as  well  as  the  recriminations  of  the  Protestants ;  it  was 
even  to  overlook  the  scruples  of  the  very  divines  of  the  council. 
No  matter  I  Was  the  assembly  not  omnipotent  ?  And  had 
the  bishops  been  pleased  to  insert  Plato's  Phtcdo,  or  Aristotle's 
Logic,  in  the  Bible,  what  could  a  Roman  Catholic  say  against 
it  ?  Ah,  when  we  see  how  much  sweating  and  sophistry  it  has 
cost  during  the  last  three  centuries,  in  order  to  sustain  this  un- 
tenable decree^  one  may  be  allowed  to  think  that  the  champions 

^  It  was  he  who,  at  the  councils  of  Hippona  and  Carthage,  caxised 
these  books  to  be  received  into  the  canon  of  the  Bible,  but  with  this 
clause  that  the  advice  of  other  Churches  should  first  be  taken.  Fur- 
ther, they  were  not  put  on  the  same  rank  with  the  canonical  books;  it 
was  only  decided  that  they  might  be  read  and  quoted. 

^  This  was  the  subject  of  the  last  letters  exclianged  between  Bossuet 
and  Leibnitz.  Their  long  discussion  was  gradually  concentrated  on  the 
Council  of  Trent,  and  this  point  had  appeared  to  Leibnitz,  if  not  the 
most  false,  at  least  the  most  clearly  false.  A  hundred  and  ticcnti/-fouy 
arguments,  neither  more  nor  less,  were  enumerated  in  support  of  his  at- 
tack; and  although  the  council,  said  he,  had  introduced  no  innovation 


J 


86  HISTORY   OF  THE   COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  II. 

of  Rome  have  more  than  once  cursed,  in  their  heart,  the  day  on 
which  so  imprudent  a  denial  was  given  to  one  of  the  most  un- 
questionable facts  in  the  whole  history  of  the'  Church.  But 
what  is  sadder  still  than  the  infatuation  of  the  men  who  imasf- 
ined  that  they  could  change  the  past  as  they  fettered  the  future, 
is  the  impudent  fury  with  which  some  would  dare,  down  to  this 
very  day,  to  repeat  that  the  Protestants  mutilate  the  Bible  ;  and 
why  ?  Because,  forsooth,  they  allow  themselves  to  print  it  with- 
out those  books  which  Rome  herself,  down  to  the  Council  of 
Trent,  had  never  declared  canonical. 

It  has  happened,  accordingly,  with  this  decree  as  with  that 
on  tradition.  Hardly  was  it  made,  when  it  was  rested  on  as  if 
it  had  existed  for  a  thousand  years ;  as  if  its  roots  had  reached 
down  to  the  very  earliest  days  of  the  Church.  "  In  like  man- 
ner," St.  Jerome^  had  said,  "as- the  Church  reads  the  books  of 
Judith,  of  Tobit,  and  the  Maccabees,  tvithmit,  receiving  them, 
Jwwever,  into  the  number  of  the  canonical  Scriptures,  those  of 
Wisdom  and  Ecclesiasticus  may  also  be  read  for  the  edification 
of  the  people,  but  not  to  prove  or  sanction  any  article  of  faith.'' 
"VYell,  now,  there  are  Latin  Bibles  in  which  the  decree  of  1546 
is  printed  at  the  beginning  of  the  book,  and  St.  Jerome's  disserta- 
tion a  little  farther  on.  At  the  distance  of  some  pages  you  will 
learn  from  St.  Jerome  that  there  are  apocryphal  books,  and  if 
you  turn  to  the  council's  verdict,  you  will  be  told  that  there  are 
none.  "  I  always  thought  that  the  heart  had  been  on  the  left 
side,"  says  one  of  the  dramatis  personam  in  the  play,  astonished 
to  hear  it  spoken  of  as  on  the  right.  "  Yes,  so  it  was  once," 
replies  the  physician,  "but  we  have  changed  all  that."  We  are 
ashamed,  we  confess,  to  have  a  scene  from  Moliere  suggested  to 
us  in  speaking  about  the  Bible  ;  but  who  is  to  be  blamed  for 
that  ?  It  would  be  quite  as  easy  to  change  the  position  of  the 
heart  as  to  prevent  St.  Jerome,  his  contemporaries,  his  predeces- 
sors, his  successors,  the  whole  Church,  in  fine,  daring  more  than 
fifteen  hundred  years,  from  having  regarded  as  inferior  those 
books  which  were  placed  at  Trent  on  the  same  rank  with  the 
others. 

This  decision,  of  which  Romanists  have  sought  to  avail  them- 
selves with  such  hardihood  since  that  time,  has  not  even  the 
merit  of  clearly  belonging  to  the  category  of  those  which  every 
Roman  Catholic  is  bound  to  admit.  It  is  generally  acknowledged 
that  the  Church,  that  the  pope,  may  be  mistaken  about  facts, 

when  it  decreed  the  canonicit}'  of  those  books,  where  could  one  find,  in 
ancient  times,  in  the  middle  ages,  down  to  that  session  in  fine,  the 
slightest  trace  of  the  anathema  by  which  that  decree  is  sanctioned? 
*  Preface  to  the  books  of  Solomon. 


Chap.  1.  I51G.     IN   WHAT   LANGUAGE  IS  THE  BI13LE  INSPIRED?  87 

may  admit,  for  example,  a  false  miracle  on  false  testimony.  Now, 
the  authenticity  of  a  book  is  a  question  of  fact,  of  history;  it 
may  be  excellent  in  point  of  doctrine,  without  beint^  any  the 
more  admissible  in  point  of  canonicity.  Hence,  though  the 
Church  has  proclaimed  it  canonical,  the  only  thin^  a  Roman 
Catholic  is  bound  to  believe  is,  that  it  is  good  and  orthodox  ;  the 
historical  question  remains  intact,  and  the  Church's  testimony 
on  that  part  of  the  inquest  remains  purely  human.  Some  authors 
have  maintained,  it  is  true,  that  certain  questions  of  fact,  and  this 
one  in  particular,  come  within  the  domain  of  infallibility,  but 
they  do  not  agree  upon  the  characteristic  points  by  which  ques- 
tions of  this  class  are  to  be  recognised,  and  this  distinction,  be- 
sides, is  too  manifestly  ex  2J0st  facto  for  our  observation  to  be  at 
all  weakened  by  it. 

It  remained  to  be  decided  in  what  language  the  books  of  the 
Bible  —  from  henceforth  all  put  on  the  same  level  in  point  of 
authority  —  should  be  reputed  inspired  and  infallible.  Here, 
again,  a  point  occurred  on  which  the  council's  decision  was  about 
to  be  opposed  to  the  clearest  data  of  learning,  history,  and  com- 
mon sense. 

At  bottom,  it  was  not  a  matter  about  Avhich  there  could  rea- 
sonably be  a  question.  Inspired  or  not,  a  man  writes.  Is  it  in 
Hebrew  ?  Then  it  is  in  Hebrew  and  in  Hebrew  alone  that  you 
are  sure  of  having  his  thoughts,  all  his  thoughts,  nothing  but 
his  thoughts.  Is  it  in  Greek  ?  Then  it  is  in  Greek  you  will 
find  what  he  meant.  If  you  do  not  understand  those  tongues, 
nothing  is  more  natural  than  that  you  should  make  use  of  a 
translation  ;  but  if  you  do  understand  them,  why  should  you  be 
prevented  from  going  to  the  book  as  it  came  from  the  hands  of 
the  author  ?  The  only  way  would  be  to  prove  to  you  that  the 
translation  is  of  an  absolutely  perfect  accuracy.  But  if  you  have 
to  do  with  an  inspired  book,  it  is  only  by  bringing  the  translator 
to  an  equahty  with  the  author,  and  making  him  inspired  also, 
that  we  can  make  the  translation 'equal  to  the  original. 

Now,  St.  Jerome,  the  chief  author  of  the  Vulgate,!  j^^s  no- 
where said  a  word  from  which  it  might  be  conjectured  that  he 
thought  himself  aided  in  his  translation  by  any  assistance  from 
on  high.  Had  he  affirmed  this,  we  should  have  appealed  against 
it  on  the  ground  of  the  numerous  faults  which,  as  we  shall  see 
anon,  have  been  corrected  in  that  still  very  imperfect  work. 
Was  the  work,  at  least,  all  done  by  him  ?  No  ;  several  parts 
are  taken  from  a  more  ancient  version, ^  done  by  nobody  knows 

^  Edltio  vidgata,  the  edition  in  general  circulation.    Hence  the  name 
Vulgate  given  to  the  Latin  Bible  used  in  the  Roman  Church. 
^  Italica  veUi^ 


88  HISTORY   OF  THE   COUNCIL    OF   TRENT.  Book.  II. 

whom,  and  which  he  thought  far  from  good,  seeing  that  it  was 
in  order  to  have  it  superseded  by  a  better,  that  he  undertook  his 
own.  Notwithstanding  the  superiority  of  the  latter  :  "  Tliose 
who  speak  Latin,"  says  Augustine,  "require,  in  order  to  the 
understanding  of  the  Scriptures,  to  be  acquainted  with  two  other 
languages,  Hebrew  and  Greek,  so  that  they  may  have  recourse 
to  ancient  copies  when  the  disagreement  of  Latin  interpreters 
suggests  any  doubt."^  Thus,  notwithstanding  his  esteem  for  St. 
Jerome,  he  confounds  him  with  the  Latin  interpreters,  whose 
disagreement,  he  says,  produces  doubts  which  can  be  removed 
only  by  going  to  the  originals.  A  century  and  a  half  after  him, 
two  versions  only  were  in  use,  that  of  Jerome,  which  took  the 
name  of  the  New,  and  the  Italic  or  Old  one.  Gregory  the 
Great,  in  his  commentary  on  Job,  says  that  he  prefers  the  New 
as  being  more  conformed  to  the  Hebrew,  but  that  he  quotes  them 
both  indifferently  ;  this,  he  adds,  is  what  is  usually  done  by 
popes  and  their  doctors.  Gradually  the  two  versions  passed  into 
each  other.  AVhatever  could  not  be  changed  without  inconven- 
ience in  the  Old,  was  retained — the  Psalms,  in  particular,  being 
what  every  body  knew  by  heart ;  the  rest  was  taken  from  the 
New.  One  sole  book  was  at  length  the  result,  namely,  the  Vul- 
gate. But,  for  a  series  of  centuries,  the  Church  made  use  of  it 
as  one  uses  a  book  absolutely  in  his  power,  without  disapproving 
of  it,  but  yet  no  more  approving  of  it  otherwise  than  by  the 
mere  fact  of  its  using  it,  in  fine,  without  forbidding  any  one  to 
have  recourse  to  some  other  quarter. 

No  one,  it  is  true,  had  any  idea  of  doing  so,  Greek  and 
Hebrew  were  not  only  dead  tongues — they  were  annihilated. 
The  Latin,  by  unanimous  consent,  had  succeeded  to  their  rights  ; 
and  it  had  no  more  to  reckon  with  those  tonsues  than  a  son 
with  a  father  many  years  dead.  Accordingly,  when  the  fifteenth 
century  drew  them  from  the  dust  with  which  they  were  covered, 
you  would  have  said  they  were  like  dead  men  reappearing  amid 
their  confounded  heirs.  "A  new  language,"  said  a  monk  from 
the  pulpit,  "  has  been  discovered,  which  is  called  the  Greek. 
It  must  be  carefully  avoided.  This  language  is  the  mother  of 
all  heresies.  I  see  in  the  hands  of  many  a  book  written  in 
that  tongue  ;  it  is  called  the  New  Testament.  It  is  a  book  full 
of  briars  and  vipers.  As  for  Hebrew,  those  who  learn  it  imme- 
diately become  Jews."  Whether  such  was  or  was  not  the 
monk's  discourse — and  a  very  grave  historian^  reports  it  as 
authentic — it  admirably  expresses  the  astonishment  and  the  fears 
of  the  time.     Those  two  tongues,  new  in  virtue  of  being  old, 

^  Christian  Doctrine,  b.  ii. 

^  Sismondi,  Hist  of  the  French,  xvi. 


Chap.  I.  1516.    GEREK  AND  HEBREW  VIEWED  WITH  JEALOUSY.  89 

people  were  tempted  to  look  upon  as  intruders,  and  to  ask  them 
what  right  they  had  to  come  and  disturb  the  Latin  in  its  occupa- 
tion of  the  throne  which  it  had  now  so  long  engrossed.  They 
crowded  around  it ;  they  confnmed  it  in  the  enjoyment  of  all 
the  rights  which  it  held  from  usage.  Both  Greek  and  Hebrew 
were  to  be  allowed  to  subsist,  but  they  were  to  be  neither  its 
superiors  nor  its  equals  ;  and,  in  1502,  in  the  famous  Bible  of 
Alcala,  in  putting  the  Vulgate  between  the  Hebrew  text  and 
the  Greek  text,  it  was  Cardinal  Ximenes  who  said,  in  the  pre- 
face, that  it  was  Christ  betwixt  the  two  thieves. 

Thus  we  see  that  the  foundations  of  the  strange  decree  that 
was  about  to  be  passed,  had  been  laid  at  the  commencement  of 
that  century.  And  yet,  when  the  subject  began  to  be  more 
closely  examined,  the  members  were  far  from  agreed  about  it. 

At  fu-st,  although  the  council  was  by  no  means  rich  in  Hel- 
lenists, and  still  less  in  Hebrew  scholars,  several  of  its  divines 
were  not  without  having  made  the  discovery,  either  by  their 
own  labours  or  by  those  of  others,  of  some,  at  least,  of  the  imper- 
fections of  the  Vulgate.  These  were  interdicted  at  once  by 
common  sense  and  by  conscience  from  putting  their  hands  to  a 
law,  carried  in  the  face  of  facts  proved  by  evidence,  patent,  in- 
contestable. The  idea,  therefore,  was  entertained  for  a  moment, 
of  taking  up  some  certain  copy  of  the  original  texts,  and  trans- 
lating it  into  Latin,  advantage  being  taken  of  all  the  lights  that 
the  age  could  supply ;  but  people  were  alarmed  at  the  immens- 
ity of  the  labour  that  this  would  entail,  all  the  more,  inasmuch 
as  to  .proceed  logically,  all  doctrinal  decisions  would  have  to  be 
supended  until  the  entire  completion  of  the  new  translation. 
For  surely  a  judge  is  not  competent  to  pronounce  in  a  cause,  as 
long  as  he  admits  his  not  being  sure  of  having  in  his  possession 
the  exact  text,  or  a  faithful  translation  of  the  law. 

Despatch,  therefore,  was  required,  and  those  who  wanted  a 
new  translation  were  not  listened  to. 

Even  after  admitting  the  Vulgate  in  principle,  all  was  not 
over  :  it  was  necessary  that  the  title  on  which  it  was  received 
should  be  declared.  Some  wished  that  the  approbation  should 
be  full,  entire,  without  restriction  of  any  kind.  "  Either  God 
has  failed  in  his  promise  of  keeping  his  Church  from  error,  or  it 
is  impossible,"  said  they,  "that  he  can  have  left  her  to  make 
use  of  an  erroneous  translation.  If  Providence  has  given  an 
authentic  Scripture  to  the  Jews,  and  an  authentic  Scripture  to 
the  Greeks,  is  it  not  insulting  to  that  Providence  to  suppose 
God's  well-beloved  Uoman  Church  should  have  been  left  with- 
out such  an  advantage?"  Others,  without  going  back  so  far, 
gave  an  artless  picture  of  the  embarrassment  people  would  bring 


t/ 


90  HISTORY   OF   THE    COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  II. 

on  themselves  if  tliey  did  not  "begin  by  shutting  up  the  source 
of  all  embarrassment  for  ever.  "  It  would  be  grammarians, 
then,  that  Avould  become  the  arbiters  of  the  faith  1  An  inquisi- 
tor would  have  to  listen  to  answers  made  in  Greek  and  in 
Hebrew  I  Passages  from  Scripture  that  have  been  intercalated 
for  ages  in  the  Church's  prayers,  the  decrees  of  popes,  the 
canons  of  councils,  might  be  attacked,  refashioned,  and  dissect- 
ed I  This  would  be  to  yield  the  victoiy  to  Luther,  Zwingli, 
and,  in  short,  to  all  heretics  past,  present,  and  to  come."  All, 
in  fine,  with  a  little  more  or  a  little  less  bashfulness  in  the  rea- 
sons they  assigned,  were  agreed  in  practically  assuming  the 
necessity  of  immediately  estabhshing  one  fixed  and  immutable 
basis. 

It  is  from  this  alleged  necessity  that  the  council's  apologists 
still  argue  in  their  attempts  to  find  an  excuse  for  the  strange 
decree  which  was  adopted  on  the  strength  of  it.  "  Had  one  of 
the  doctors,"  says  the  Abbe  Prompsault,  "  quoted  the  Hebrew 
text,  another  the  Greek  text,  another  the  Syriac,  another  the 
version  of  Luther  or  of  Servetus,  the  confusion  would  have  been 
worse  than  at  the  tower  of  Babel."  Possibly  it  might ;  but 
what  has  that  to  do  with  the  proof  of  the  authenticity  and  cor- 
rectness of  the  Yulgate  ?  How  did  the  embarrassment  resulting 
from  the  variety  of  the  texts  sanction  the  council's  choosing  one 
from  the  rest  for  the  purpose  of  declaring  it  authentic  ?  And, 
accordingly,  great  efforts  have  been  made  to  prove  that  such 
was  not  the  meaning  of  the  decree.  The  council,  it  has  been 
said,  does  not  pronounce  the  Yulgate  infallible.  "  Its  decision 
is  not  a  dogmatical  decision  ;  it  is  merely  a  disciplinary  regula- 
tion, made  in  view  of  the  circimistances  and  the  wants  of  the 
moment."^  Be  it  so  ;  but  where  is  this  to  be  seen  ?  Certainly 
not  in  the  text  of  the  decree.  The  council  ordains  and  declares 
that  in  all  public  lessons,  discussions,  preachings,  and  exposi- 
tions, this  ancient  version  shall  be  held  as  authentic,  and  that 
no  one  shall  dare,  or  shall  presume,  to  reject  it,  under  any 
pi-etext  U'hatever?  Not  even,  consequently,  under  pretext  that 
such  or  such  a  passage  shall  have  been  recognized  as  false, 
and  the  future,  in  this  manner,  is  as  much  fettered  as  the  past. 
But  let  us  accept  the  explanation.  We  had  only  to  do  with  the 
false  ;  we  have  now  to  do  with  the  absurd.  The  Yulgate  is 
not  infallible,  and  it  is  the  Yulgate  which  alone,  without  con- 
trol, without  its  being  permissible  to  reject  a  single  word  of  it, 
is  to  serA'-e  the  purpose  of  infallibly  fixing  the  faith.     The  doctor, 

^  Hug,  Introduction  to  the  Books  of  the  New  Testament. 
^  Statuit  et  declarat  ut  .  .  .  pro  authentica;  lit  earn  nemo  rejicere 
quovis  prffitextu  aiideat  vel  proesumat. 


Chap.  I.  151G.  THE    VULGATE    CORRECTED.  91 

in  his  prol'esdor's  chair,  is  not  authorized  to  quote  it  -as  rigor- 
ously correct,  and  he  is  authorized  to  declare  the  nullity  of  all 
the  corrections  you  may  presume  to  suggest.  Each  passage, 
theu,  is  like  a  piece  of  money  bearing  the  image  of  the  Council 
of  Trent.  You  are  not  held  bound  to  believe  it  good,  but  you 
have  no  right  to  refuse  it.'  "  The  council,"  says  an  author 
already  quoted,  "  has  not  said  that  the  Vulgate  alone  shall  be 
authentic  ;  it  has  onhj  declared  that  it  shall  be  held  as  authen- 
tic." This  only  is  curious.  The  council  has  not  denied  that 
the  original  texts  are  authentic  ;  it  has  only  declared  that  the 
Vulgate  is  so  also,  although  it  departs  from  them  at  a  thousand 
points.     This  is  what  the  expression  really  implies. 

Was  there,  at  least,  an  edition  universally  admitted,  correct, 
and  unique  ?  No  ;  it  had  to  be  decided  that  one  should  be 
made.  There  was  much  wisdom  in  this  ;  but  it  made  the  pre- 
ceding decree  only  all  the  more  strange.  It  would  have  been 
not  more  reasonable,  but  certainly  more  rational,  to  deny  the 
faults  of  the  Vulgate,  and  to  proclaim  it  at  once  infallible  and 
perfect,  thau  to  declare  it  inviolable,  even  while  confessing  it 
faulty,  and  that  it  was  about  to  be  corrected. 

In.  consequence  of  this  last  decision,  one  naturally  desires  to 
know  through  what  process  it  has  passed. 

A  commissiou  had  been  named  which  did  nothing.  Towards 
the  close  of  the  council  Pius  IV.  appointed  another,  but  at  Rome. 
Pius  V.  renewed  it,  and  accelerated  its  labours.  Twelve  years 
afterwards,  at  the  accession  of  Sixtus-Cluintus,  the  work  had 
hardly  commenced,  and  that  impetuous  pontiff  began  to  lose 
patience.  He  made  it  his  own  affair,  and,  at  the  commence- 
meut  of  1589,  announced  by  a  bull,  that  the  work  was  drawing 
to  a  close.  The  new  Vulgate  was  printed  under  his  own  eyes 
at  the  Vatican,  and  he  himself  revised  the  proofs.  "  We  have 
corrected  them  with  our  own  hand,'"-^  he  says  in  the  preface. 
"  The  work  appeared,  and  it  was  impossible,"  says  Hug,  "  that 

^  This  strange  reasoning  has  been  carried  into  a  much  more  serious 
question,  that  of  infallibility.  "  Infallibility  in  the  spiritual  order," 
says  De  .Maistre,  "and  sovereignty  in  the  temporal  order,  are  two 
perfectly  synonymous  words.  \Vhen  we  sa}'  that  the  Church  is  infal- 
lible, we  do  not  ask  any  special  privilege  for  it;  we  onl\'  ask  tliat  it 
should  enjoy  rights  common  to  all  possible  sovereignties,  all  of  which 
should  necessarily  reign  as  infallible,  for  all  government  is  absolute; 
and  from  the  moment  that  it  may  be  resisted  under  the  pretext  of  error 
and  injustice,  it  no  longer  exists."  What  flows  most  clearly  from  this 
passage  is  that,  provided  a  man  submit  to  the  Church's  decisions,  he  is 
not  bound  to  think  the  Church  in  the  right,  any  more  than  a  citizen  in 
obeying  a  law  is  bound  to  believe  it  good.  To" understand  infallibility 
in  this  sense  is  to  deny  it. 

*  Xostra  nos  ipsi  manu  correximus. 


92  HISTORY   OF   THE   COUNCIL    OF   TRENT.  Book  H. 

it  should  not  have  given  occasion  for  criticism  and  pleasantry. 
Many  passages  were  found,  particularly  in  the  Old  Testament, 
covered  with  slips  of  paper,  on  which  new  corrections  had  been 
printed  ;  others  were  scratched  out,  or  merely  corrected  with  a 
pen.  ...  In  fine,  the  copies  issued  were  far  from  all  present- 
ing the  same  corrections." 

It  had  accordingly  to  he  done  over  again.  Gregory  XIV., 
the  successor  of  Sixtus-duintus,  set  to  work  without  delay,  and 
after  him  Clement  VIII .  had  the  satisfaction  of  publishing,  in 
1592,  the  text  which  was  to  undergo  no  change.  But  what 
was  the  public  to  think  ?  How  were  corrections  to  be  acknowl- 
edged, of  which  there  were  about  six  thousand  on  matters  of 
detail,  and  a  hundred  that  were  important  ?  Bellarmine  under- 
took the  preface.  The  honour  of  Sixtus  V.  was  saved  :  all  the 
imperfections  of  his  Vulgate  were — errors  of  the  press. 

Was  this  version,  which,  after  forty-six  years  of  corrections 
and  recorrections,  was  to  enter  into  full  possession  of  the  privi- 
leo-es  announced  in  the  decree,  issued  at  least  in  the  best  state 
possible  ?  No  ;  Bellarmine  admits,  in  that  same  preface,  that 
the  revisers  had  allowed  many  things  to  pass  that  needed  a 
stricter  examination.  But  enough  of  this.  AVere  it  at  this  day 
the  best  of  all  the  translations  of  the  Bible,  we  have  seen  what 
it  was  when  the  council  placed  it  on  the  altar,  and  how  much 
audacity  or  ignorance  it  must  have  taken  to  declare  it  authentic, 
even  in  that  indirect  and  weakened  sense  which  people  were 
afterwards  compelled  to  attach  to  the  word. 

A  fourth  point,  in  fine,  had  been  submitted  to  the  assembly. 
To  whom  does  the  interpretation  of  Scripture  belong  ? 

Here,  too,  the  divines  showed  themselves  men  of  larger  and 
more  reasonable  minds  than  the  bishops.  However  they  might 
hate  the  reformers,  they  themselves  being  men  of  study,  could 
not  propose  that  the  study  of  the  Bible  should  be  interdicted ; 
the  utmost  they  could  venture,  was  to  seek  for  some  means 
of  reconciling  this  exercise  of  liberty  with  the  Church's  au- 
thority, and  the  maintenance  of  her  dogmas.  This,  it  is  true, 
was  no  easy  task.  Some  said  that  new  interpretations  ought 
not  to  be  rejected,  inovided  they  icere  not  contrarij  to  the 
faith  ;  others  would  not  have  people  frightened  at  diversity  of 
interpretations,  _/Jroi-zV/£'<:Z  that  this  did  noi  go  the  length  of  co7i- 
trariety.  As  if  it  were  possible,  after  having  once  permitted 
examination,  to  come  under  an  engagement  never  to  be  in 
contradiction  with  received  ideas  I  Let  us  thank  the  divines 
for  these  feeble  yearnings  after  liberty  ;  but  they  should  have 
seen  that  this  was  a  point  in  which  no  middle  term  is  admissi- 
ble.    There  is  but  one  choice,  subjection  or  liberty. 


Chap.  I.  1546.     THE  CHURCH  ONLY  CAN  INTERPRET  SCRIPTURE. 


93 


Such  was  the  view  taken  of  it  by  the  bisliops ;  and  \vc 
need  not  add  to  which  side  of  the  alternative  they  leaned. 
They  were  told  by  Cardinal  Pacheco,  that  "  bJcripture  having 
been  explained  by  so  many  persons  ernnient  for  piety  and  doc- 
trhial  learning:,  it  could  not  be  hoped  that  anything  better  could 
be  added.  Had  not  all  new  heresies  arisen  from  the  new 
meanings  that  had  been  given  to  h?criptuie  ?"  The  advances 
made  by  the  Reformation  were  little  calculated,  indeed,  to  rec- 
ommend free  inquiry  to  the  eyes  of  any  one  that  desired  the 
maintenance  of  Rome ;  it  would  have  required  more  than  hu- 
man largeness  of  mind  and  tolerance  to  accept  a  principle,  the 
consequences  of  which  it  was  impossible  to  avoid  regarding  as 
so  fatal  and  so  impious.  Here,  accordingly,  the  bishops  of  Trent 
lay  under  the  pressure  of  a  vital  and  absolute  necessity. 

More  than  this,  once  under  that  pressure,  they  were  compelled 
to  go  on  to  the  end.  To  forbid  the  teaching  of  any  new  opinion 
would  have  been  but  tacitly  to  permit  the  search  for  it,  and  the 
conception  of  it,  provided  it  was  not  published.  But  there  is 
but  a  short  way  Irom  the  heart  to  the  lips.  In  interdicting  the 
teaching,  unless  you  take  measures  at  the  same  time  for  re- 
straining thought,  you  have  done  nothing.  People  were  pro- 
hibited, therefore — such  are  the  very  terms  of  the  decree — were 
prohibited  from  interpreting  Scripture  "  in  a  sense  contrary  to 
that  which  the  Church  has  held,  and  holds ;"  and  that  "  €ven 
although  a  num  should  have  the  intention  of  holding  these 
inteiyrctatio7is  secret! '  ^ 

This  last  clause  evidently  annihilated  what  little  liberty  one 
might  suppose  to  have  been  accorded  in  other  parts  of  the  decree. 
If  I  cannot,  without  crime,  I  will  not  say  teach,  but  even  con- 
ceive, in  the  depths  of  my  conscience,  interpretations  contrary  to 
the  laws  of  the  Church,  what  means  can  I  then  take  to  keep 
myself  without  reproach  ?  One  only  ;  that  is,  never  to  open  the 
book  where  I  might  risk  seeing,  right  or  wrong,  what  the  Church 
does  not  wish  me  to  see.  "  Scripture  must  not  be  given,"  says 
Fenelon,2  to  any  but  those  who,  receiving  it  only  as  from  the 
hands  of  the  Church,  only  desire  to  look  for  the  Church's  mean- 
ing therein."  "  To  look  for  it" — that  we  can  understand  ;  "to 
find  it" — Avho  can  be  sure  of  that  beforehand?  And  if  the 
council  forbids  the  finding  of  anything  else,  is  not  this,  we 
repeat,  to  forbid  search?  "When  Doctor  Usingen,"  says  Lu- 
ther,^ "  saw  me  reading  the  Bible  so  much  :  Ah,  brother  Mar- 
tin, he  would  say  to  me,  what  is  the  Bible  ?     Read,  read  rather 

^  Etiamsi  luijiismodi  interpretationes  nullo  imquam  tempore  in  lii- 
cem  edendse  forent. 

'  Letter  to  the  Bishop  of  Arras.  ^  Hschreden  (Table-Talk). 


94  HISTORY   OF   THE   COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  U. 

the  old  doctors,  who  have  sucked  the  honey  out  of  it."  Doctor 
Usingen  ought  to  have  Uved  until  1546,  and  to  have  gone  to 
the  council ;  he  would  have  been  sure  to  make  the  same  reflec- 
tion with  ourselves  on  the  inconsistency  of  the  decree.  Better 
had  it  been  frankly  to  decide,  as  was  desired  by  a  certain  Nor- 
man divine,  called  Richard,  that  Scripture  from  henceforth  is 
useless,  since  it  is  long  since  the  Church  has  taken  out  of  it 
all  that  it  was  proper  to  take.  "It  is  true,"  he  added,  "  that 
it  was  read  in  former  days  in  the  churches  for  the  instruction  of 
the  people,  and  that  it  was  studied  also  with  that  view ;  but 
now-a-days  it  is  used  only  in  the  way  of  prayer.  Let  it  still  be 
employed  for  that  purpose  ;  but  not  as  an  object  of  study.  Such 
is  the  mode  in  which  we  ought  now  to  shew  our  respect  for  the 
Bible."  Would  not  one  say  that  it  was  the  god  of  Epicurus 
momentarily  proceeding  from  nothing  to  create  the  world,  and 
returning  to  nothing  immediately  on  his  work  being  done  ? 
The  Franciscan's  opinion  seemed  strange  and  almost  blas- 
phemous ;  and  yet,  leaving  out  of  view  the  bluntness  of  the 
terms,  was  it  not  the  equivalent  of  the  decree  ?  Take  the 
E-oman  system  in  its  rigour  ;  doctrmes  irrevocably  fixed ;  an 
omnipotent  authority  charged  with  the  maintenance  of  them, 
prohibition  against  change,  or  exposing  one's  self  to  the  risk  of 
changing  anything,  even  in  the  secret  of  the  conscience,  and  you 
must  admit,  that  with  all  this,  it  is  not  easy  to  find  for  Scripture 
any  place  to  occupy,  or  part  to  fulfil,  even  in  reducing  it  to  that 
of  a  mere  book  of  edification. 

And  now,  should  we  think  of  taking  up  the  same  question  in 
the  historical  and  critical  point  of  view,  we  should  have  quite  a 
book  to  make  ;  a  book,  moreover,  of  which  we  should  not  have 
much  to  do  in  searching  for  the  materials,  so  manifest  are  the 
objections,  and  so  abundant  are  the  testimonies. 

First,  then,  in  the  Scripture  itself,  there  is  not  a  word,  not  a 
syllable,  from  which  one  might  deduce  an  authority  for  not  leav- 
ing it  at  the  disposition  of  everybody. 

The  Old  Testament — we  there  read  in  a  hundred  passages 
that  the  reading  of  it  was  not  only  permitted,  but  formally  com- 
manded. 

The  jSTew — what  do  we  find  there  ?  Historical  books  emi- 
nently popular,  epistles  addressed  to  numerous  churches,  not  to 
pastors  or  to  leadmg  men,  but  to  all  the  members  without  dis- 
tinction. Epistle  to  the  Roniaiis,  to  the  Corinthia7is,  to  the 
Fhilijipians,  say  all  the  Bibles,  the  Vulgate  as  well  as  others. 
In  the  book  of  the  Acts  (xvii.),  when  St.  Paul  preached  at 
Berea,  what  did  the  Bereans  do  ? — they  searched  the  Scrip- 
tures daily,  whether  these  things  ivere  so.     Did  Paul  blame 


CiiAP.  I.  1M6.     THE   IJIDLE   RECOMMENDED   BY   JJIE    FATHERS.  95 

them  for  this  ?  By  no  means  ;  St.  Luke,  who  records  the  fact, 
mentions  it  on  the  contrary  as  a  proof  of  their  zeal.  And  could 
this  same  Paul,  who  saw  notliing  wrong  in  people  going  to  the 
Scriptures,  when  it  was  he,  the  Apostle,  who  taught,  blame  us 
for  going  to  them,  and  to  his  own  writings  among  others,  ta 
see,  like  the  faithful  of  Berea,  whether  things  are  as  %ve  are 

told! 

Does  this  idea,  receiving  no  support  from  the  Bible,  emanate 
at  least  from  an  ancient  tradition  ?  No.  It  receives  no  coun- 
tenance from  the  writers  of  the  first  ages  of  the  Church.  Of  re- 
commendations touching  the  respect  with  which  Scripture  ought 
to  be  read,  of  advices  on  the  methods  of  reading  it  to  advantage, 
of  reproaches  addressed  to  those  who  read  it  ill,  of  regrets  ibr 
those  who  have  allowed  themselves  to  be  led  astray  in  reading 
it — you  will  iind  as  many  as  you  could  wish  ;  but  what  do  all 
those  regrets,  counsels,  and  reproaches  prove,  if  not  this — that  it 
was  read  ?  And  yet  never,  never  did  the  Fathers  proceed  from 
this,  to  restrain,  or  to  deny  the  right  to  read  it.  The  abuse  does 
not  destroy  the  right.  After  having  enumerated  all  the  varia- 
tions, all  the  errors,  all  the  extravagances  even,  which  may 
have  arisen  from  the  free  interpretation  of  the  Bible,  you  will 
not  have  proved  that  any  single  individual,  or  body  of  individ- 
uals, any  pope  or  Church,  is  authorized  to  forbid  its  use. 

And,  far  from  confining  themselves  to  not  interdicting,  with 
what  urgency  do  not  the  Fathers  recommend  it  I  Must  we 
quote  instances  ?  Why,  the  difficulty  is  to  choose  ;  for  were 
all  the  passages  over  which  we  have  cast  our  eyes  to  be  ad- 
duced, they  would  amount,  without  exaggeration,  to  several  hun- 
dreds, besides  entire  discourses,  quite  as  positive,  and  as  strong 
as  anything  ever  said  by  the  Bible  Societies. 

"  Search  the  Scriptures,"  says  Clement  of  E-ome  ;  and  his 
famous  epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  so  much  venerated,  that  it 
has  been  sometimes  proposed  to  have  it  introduced  into  the  New 
Testament,  perpetually  recalls  or  assumes  this  precept. 

"I  am  confident,"  says  Polycarp,^  "that  you  are  well  exer- 
cised in  the  Holy  Scriptures,  and  that  no  part  of  them  is  un- 
known to  you." 

"  Each  of  you,"  says  another  of  the  Fathers,^  "  in  meditating 
on  the  Avord,\vill  find  there  a  treasure  of  succours  for  all  spirit- 
ual evils."  Each  of  you — and  he  that  thus  spoke,  uttered 
these  words  from  the  pulpit,  while  a  whole  people  heard  theni. 
Elsewhere,  in  a  letter,  "  If  thou  knowest  how  to  search  in 
Scripture,  for  the  succours  that  it  ofiers,  thou  wilt  not  have  need 

'  Epistle  to  the  Philippian?. 

2  Basil,  Homily  on  the  First  Psalta. 


96  HISTORY    OF  THE   COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  II. 

either  of  me  or  of  any  one."     And  it  is  to  a  woman  that  he 
writes  this. 

Ambrose^  says,  "  Holy  Scripture  edifies  everybody.  We  speak 
to  Christ  when  we  pray  ;  we  Hsten  to  him  when  we  read  the 
Scriptures." 

Origen,2  "  The  true  nourishment  of  our  soul,  is  the  reading 
of  the  Word  of  God.  Let  us  nourish  ourselves  on  the  Gospels. 
Let  us  quench  our  thirst  by  the  reading  of  the  writings  of  the 
Apostles." 

Isodorus  of  Pelusium,^  "  The  heavenly  oracles  have  been 
written  for  the  whole  human  race.  Even  husbandmen  are  in 
a  condition  to  learn  there  what  it  is  fitting  for  them  to  know. 
The  learned  and  the  ignorant,  children  and  women,  may  equally 
instruct  themselves  there." 

Jerome,-*  "  It  is  for  the  whole  people  that  the  Apostles  wrote. 
The  laity  ought  to  abound  in  the  knowledge  of  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures." And  at  another  place,  writing  to  a  woman  too,  "What 
I  shall  never  cease  to  recommend  to  you,  is  to  love  the  Scripture 
and  to  read  it." 

Augustine,^  "What  happens  to  our  flesh  when  it  takes  nour- 
ishment only  once  in  the  course  of  several  days,  happens  to  our 
soul  when  it  does  not  nourish  itself  frequently  on  the  Word  of 
God.  Continue,  then,  to  listen  at  church  to  the  reading  of  Holy 
Scripture,  and  read  it  over  again  in  your  houses." 

But  of  all  the  Fathers,  the  most  ardent  on  this  point  is 
Chrysostom.  Besides  a  host  of  direct  exhortations  which  it  is 
needless  to  adduce  after  having  given  so  many  others,  let  us 
hear  him  refuting  all  the  objections  which  this  subject  might 
suggest.  "  When  we  receive  money,"  says  he,^  "  we  like  to 
count  it  over  ourselves ;  and  when  divine  things  are  what  we 
have  to  do  with,  should  we  bend  our  necks  and  submit  at  once 
to  the  opinions  of  others?  Consult,  then,  the  Scriptures."  But 
it  may  be  alleged  that  they  are  not  sufficiently  clear.  "  The 
Holy  Ghost  intrusted  the  composition  of  them  expressly  to  illit- 
erate men,  in  order  that  every  one,  even  the  least  educated, 
might  understand  the  Word,  and  profit  by  it."'^  But  have  we 
time  to  occupy  ourselves  with  these  things  ?  "  Let  none,"  says 
he,  "  ofler  me  these  wretched  excuses  :  1  must  earn  my  bread  ; 
I  must  find  food  lor  my  children.     It  is  not  for  me  to  read  the 

^  Ps.  xlviii.     On  the  office  of  the  Ministry,  B.  1. 

^  Homily  on  Leviticus.    Philocalia,  11.  ^  Epistles  91  and  67. 

*  On  Ps.  Ixxxvi.     On  the  Epistle  to  the  Colossians.     Epistle  97. 
^  Homily  Ixvi.     On  time. 

*  Homily  xiii.     On  the  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians. 
'  Homily  iii.     On  Lazarus. 


Chap.  I.  1546.     ST.  BERNARD— COUNCIL    OF   AIX-LA-CIIAPELLE.  9Y 

Scriptures,  but  for  those  who  have  renounced  the  world.  Poor 
man  I  Is  it  then  because  thou  art  too  much  distracted  with  a 
thousand  cares,  that  it  docs  not  belong  to  thee  to  read  the  Scrip- 
tures ?  But  thou  hast  still  more  need  of  this  than  those  who 
have  withdrawn  from  the  world  in  order  to  devote  all  their  time 
to  God."i 

After  the  Fathers,  let  us  turn  to  him  who  has  been  sometimes 
called  the  last  of  the  Fathers.  Later  than  they  by  several  ages, 
his  testimony  is  all  the  stronger.  "Persevere,"  says  St.  I3er- 
nard,2  "  persevere  in  nourishing  yourselves  with  the  Word  of 
God.  Exercise  yourselves  in  it  continually,  until  your  spirits 
fail,  that  is,  until  death." 

Must  you  have  the  opinion  of  a  pope?  "Scripture,"  says 
Gregory  the  Great,^  "  is  an  epistle  addressed  by  God  to  his  creat- 
ure. Meditate,  then,  upon  it  every  day,  and  through  the  Word 
of  God,  learn  to  know  God." 

Must  you,  in  fine,  have  the  opinion  of  a  council  itself?  We 
shall  not  go  a  hunting  after  those  of  the  first  ages,  at  times  when 
the  reading  of  the  Sacred  Books  was  so  natural,  and  so  univer- 
sally recommended,  that  it  was  not  even  a  question  about  which 
there  was  anything  to  decree  ;  but  mark  what  the  council  of 
ALx-la-Chapelle  said  in  the  year  816,  "  Let  young  women  even 
love  the  Holy  Scriptures.  Let  them  draw  wisdom  from  the 
books  of  Solomon  ;  form  themselves  to  patience  by  reading  the 
book  of  Job  ;  and  then  take  up  the  Holy  Gospels,  never  to  quit 
them  again r 

Yet  there  were  at  Trent,  and  there  are  still  people  who  are 
ready  to  denounce  as  new,  the  idea  that  the  Bible  is  for  all  I 
It  was  thought  monstrous  that  Luther  should  have  translated  it 
into  the  vulgar  tongue  ;  what  then  did  Jerome  do  when  he  trans- 
lated it  into  Latin  ?  What  did  Ulphilas,  one  of  the  Fathers  of 
Nice  do,  when  he  translated  it  into  the  language  of  the  Goths  ? 
Why  did  the  venerable  Bedc  say  with  joy,  that  in  his  time 
Scripture  was  read  in  England  in  five  diflerent  languages? 
Why,  according  to  Augustine,*  is  it  ''by  the  wisdom  of  God" 
that  Scripture,  "  from  one  sole  language  in  which  it  was  origin- 
ally, has  been  multiplied  into  an  infinity  of  languages  and  dia- 
lects, in  order  that  it  may  be  difiused  ever)^where  ?"  Where- 
fore so  many  ages,  so  many  councils,  without  the  smallest  word 
of  blame  directed  against  those  daily  exhortations,  against  that 
"  infinity"  of  translations,  against  those  eflbrts  to  prevent  there 
being  a  country,  a  village,  a  house,  without  the  Bible  ? 

But  let  us  take  care.    "  Not  a  word  of  blame,"  we  have  said  ; 

*  Homily  iii.      On  Lazarus.  '  Sermon  xxiv. 

3  Book  iv.     Ep.  40.  *  Christian  Doctrine,  ii.  5. 

E 


98  HISTORY    OF    THE    COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  II. 

and  yet  a  pope  has  not  long  since'  affirmed  the  contrary. 
"  Thus,"  says  he,  "  that  ichiclb  St.  Jerome  deplored  so  early  as 
in  his  time,  the  interpretation  of  the  Scriptures  is  left  to  the 
babbling  of  old  women,  to  the  dotage  of  decrepit  old  men,  to  the 
pert  sophist,  to  all  men,  in  short,  of  all  conditions,  provided  they 
can  but  read."     What  answer  shall  we  make  ? 

Just  none  at  all.  The  citation  is  false  ;  and  even  had  we  had 
no  means  of  verifying  this,  we  should  not  have  believed  it.  It 
cannot  be  true,  we  should  have  said  ;  if  any  one  ever  Avrote  this, 
it  must  have  been  any  one  rather  than  St.  Jerome. 

And,  in  fact,  this  is  what  he  wrote  :  "  Labourers,  masons,  car- 
penters—  those  even  who  engage  in  the  vilest  employments, 
cannot  become  masters  of  their  trades  without  having  learnt 
them — there  is  nothing  but  the  art  of  the  Scriptures  that  every 
one  claims  for  himself — the  old  woman,  the  old  dotard,  the  pert 
sopliist,  pretend  to  know  it,  and  mangle  it  and  teach  it — before 
liavins^  learnt  it!""^ 

Thus,  what  the  pope  thought  he  might  travesty  into  a  re- 
proach against  the  Scriptures,  was  a  reproach — to  whom  ?  To 
those  who  did  not  read  and  study  them  enough. 

The  decree  of  Trent  on  this  point  is  more  discreet  than  people 
have  been  since.  The  Roman  Church  was  not  yet  in  a  condi- 
tion to  say  her  last  word  ;  she  behoved  to  confine  herself  to  sur- 
round the  printing,  the  sale,  and  the  reading  of  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures with  restrictions,  some  of  which  are  good.  But  by  that 
very  act  she  constituted  herself  supreme  dispensatrix  of  those 
books,  and  of  all  that  they  contain.  Though  this  decree  does 
not  forbid  the  reading  of  the  Bible,  not  the  less  does  it  avoid 
recognizing  the  reading  of  it  as  a  right,  still  less  as  a  duty ;  the 
interdiction  appears  in  no  part  of  it,  and  yet  it  may  be  deduced 
as  a  consequence  from  every  part  of  it.  If  proofs  are  wanted, 
we  have  only  to  mark  what  were  its  results. 

Three  months  after  the  close  of  the  council,  Pius  lY.,  in 
publishing  a  catalogue  of  forbidden  books,  caused  it  to  be  pre- 
faced with  ten  rules,  the  fourth  of  which  is  conceived  thus — 
"  Experience  having  proved  that  the  reading  of  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures, granted  without  distinction  to  everybody,  does  more  harm 
than  good,  because  of  the  rashness  of  men,  it  will  thenceforth 
depend  on  the  judgment  of  the  bishop,  or  of  the  inquisitor,  to 
grant,  according  as  he  may  be  advised  by  the  parish  priest  or 
confessor,  leave  to  read  those  books,  translated  into  the  vulgar 
tongue  by  (Roman)  Cathohc  authors,  to  those  who  they  know 

^  May  1844. 

^  Lacerant,  decent,  antequam  discant.     Second  epistle  to  Paulinus, 
On  the  Study  of  the  Scriptures. 


Chap.  I.  151G.     ENMITY   OF   THE   POPEDOM   TO    THE    JHULE.  99 

can  derive  from  them  nothing  prejudicial  to  faith  and  piety. 
That  permission  ought  to  be  given  in  w^ritiug.  Whoever  shall 
not  be  furnished  with  it,  and  who,  nevertheless,  shall  have  the 
presumption  to  read  or  to  possess  the  Scriptures,  shall  not  have 
it  in  his  power  to  obtain  th<?  absolution  of  his  sin,  if  he  shall 
not  have  previously  handed  them  over  to  the  bishop." 

See  now  what  begins  to  be  clear  :  the  bishop  might  refuse  on 
the  previous  recommendation  of  a  mere  priest,  that  which  thou- 
sands of  bishops  have,  during  many  centuries,  pressed,  besought, 
conjured  the  souls  committed  to  their  charge,  to  have  perpetually 
in  their  hands. 

He  might  refuse,  but  he  might  also  grant  the  leave  in  ques- 
tion. Even  this  is  too  much.  Thirty  years  after  the  publica- 
tion of  this  rule,  it  was  confiscated  by  one  pope  for  the  exclusive 
advantage  of  all  popes.  "  It  is  to  be  observed,"  says  Clement 
VIII.,  "  that  this  rule  has  not  conferred  on  bishops  and  inquisi- 
tors any  new  powers  of  granting  licenses  to  buy,  read,  or  possess 
the  Bible  in  the  vulgar  tongue,  seeing  that  hitherto,  by  the 
order  and  usage  of  the  holy  and  universal  Roman  Inquisition, 
that  power  had  been  withdrawn  from  them — which  thing  ought 
to  be  rigorously  observed."  So  well  w'as  it  observed,  that  mat- 
ters were  often  carried  farther  than  the  pope  had  prescribed 
Alphonso  de  Castro,  highly  praises^  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  for 
having,  at  their  own  instance,  interdicted  all  translation.  In 
1750,  Perez  del  Prado,  an  inquisitor-general,  exclaims  with 
groans,  that  "  Some  men  had  pushed  their  audacity  to  the  exe- 
crable extremity'' — of  reading  the  Bible  in  the  vulgar  tongue? 
No  ;  of  asking  permission  to  read  it.^ 

Thus,  wherever  the  Church  was  mistress,  we  see  the  decree 
of  Trent  transforming  itself  rapidly  into  an  absolute  prohibition 
to  read  or  to  possess  the  Bible.  The  penalties  are  not  always 
the  same.  In  Spain  it  is  death  by  fire  ;  in  other  places  only  im- 
prisonment ;  but  everywhere  it  is  made  a  crime,  or,  at  the  least, 
a  serious  misdemeanour.  At  this  day,  in  Savoy,  at  two  leagues 
from  Geneva,  you  have  but  to  have  a  Bible  in  your  house,  and 
you  will  be  sent  for  ten  years  to  the  Castle  of  Pignerol,  incon- 
testably  a  more  monstrous  proceeding  in  the  nineteenth  century 
than  torture  or  the  flames  in  the  sixteenth.  It  often  happens 
in  France,  that  a  Protestant  colpmteur,  after  having  sold  many 
copies  of  the  Bible  in  a  village,  finds  they  have  all  disappeared 
on  his  paying  it  a  second  visit.  The  parish  priest  has  burnt 
them  all.  "  They  are  Protestant  Bibles,"  he  has  said,  and  the 
terrified  parishioner  has  hastened  to  rid  himself  of  them.     But, 

'  On  Hcrcaics,  chap.  xiii. 

*  Llorentc's  History  of  the  Inqtiisition,  chap,  xiii. 


100  HISTORY   OF  THE   COUNCIL    OF  TRENT,  Book  H. 

for  the  greater  part  of  the  time  that  this  has  been  going  on,  the 
version  has  been  that  of  Sacy,  a  Roman  Cathohc  version,  ap- 
proved in  former  times  by  many  bishops,  and  in  which  pains  had 
been  taken  not  to  change  a  single  word,  albeit  that,  from  having 
been  made  from  the  Vulgate,  it  is  very  often  faulty.    It  was  not, 
therefore,  the  Protestant  Bible  that  the  priest  burnt ;  it  was  the 
Bible,  and  this  he  well  knew.     But  what  he  knows  still  better, 
is  the  impossibility  of  refuting,  on  a  multitude  of  points,  those 
who  shall  accept  of  it  as  their  battle-field.     Emser,  that  wise 
man,  was  not  quite  sure,  he  would  say,  if  it  was  well  that  the 
Bible  had  been  translated  into  German.     Perhaps  he  did  not 
fully  know  how  far  it  was  well  that  it  should  have  been  written 
in  Hebrew,  in  Greek,  or  in  Latin.     It  and  the  Church  are  too 
much  at  variance.^     It  is   against  the  versions  of  the   Bible, 
accordingly,  into  the  vernacular  tongues  that  Rome  has  set  her- 
self to  exhale  the  spite  which  she  dared  not  express  against  the 
Bible  itself     From  the  pope  to  the  village  priest,  from  the  Vat- 
ican to  the  poor  huts  into  which  the  Roman  missionary  carries 
his  faith,  that  is  to  say,  before  all  else,  the  pope  and  the  virgin 
— we  have  now  for  thirty  years  been  hearing  a  concert  of  male- 
dictions raised  against  the  translators,  the  colporteurs,  the  readers 
of  that  book  which  an  Augustine  blessed  God  for  having  "  mul- 
tiplied" in  all  the  languages  of  the  world.     It  was  Pius  VII. 
who,  in  1816,  gave  the  signal.  What  was  it  that  men  had  done  ? 
Why,  tliey  had  printed  a  new  edition  in  Polish,  first  published, 
however,  in  1599,  by  Wink,  the  Jesuit,  with  the  approbation  of 
Gregory  XIII.  and  of  Clement  VIII.     But,  not  content  with 
reprinting  it,  they   had   sent  it  out  in  profusion.      Hence  the 
wrath  of  the  pope  ;  hence  that  torrent  of  epithets,  very  common 
in  former  times,  in  pamphlets,  but  which  are  no  longer  to  be 
found  in  the  style  of  the  Roman  Chancery.     All  this,  accord- 
ingly, in  the  eye  of  Pius  VII.,  was  "  the  most  malignant  of  in- 
ventions, a  pestilence,  the  destruction  of  the  faith,  the  conception 
of  a  new  kind  of  tares,  an  impious  machination,  an  irreparable 
ruin,  the  malice  of  a  villanous  society,"^  &c.,  &c.     But  that  so- 
ciety had  not  been  singular  in  dipping  into  this  villany  ;  a  priest, 
a  bishop  had  openly  advised  people  to  purchase  those  Bibles. 
Anon,  a  new  brief;  fresh  lamentations.     "  We  have  been  over- 
whelmed with  much  profound  distress,  on  being  made  acquainted 
with  the  dismal  project,  such  as  was  never  conceived  before,  of 
disseminating  everywhere  the  most  holy  books  of  the  Bible  in 
the  new  translations  made  contrary  to  the  Church's  salutary 
regulations.   ,  ,   .  But  we  have  been  seized  with  an  infinitely 

'  Luther  in  one  of  his  prefaces. 

^  Brief  to  the  Archbishop  of  Gnesen 


Chap.  I.  1540.      ASSAULT  OF  LEO   XII.    ON    THE   UIHLE.  101 

greater  afllictlon  still,  on  perusing  certain  letters  in  which  thou 
dost  exhort  the  people  to  purchase  these  new  versions,  to  accept 
them  when  ofiered  gratuitously,  lor  the  purpose  of  attentively 
studying  them.  Nothing,  assuredly,  more  distressing  could  hap- 
pen to  us,"^  &CC.  What  could  ho  added  to  these  lines  ?  Had 
we  given  a  rhetorician  the  task  of  drawing  up  a  piece  of  wTiting 
diametrically  opposite  to  all  that  we  have  quoted  from  earlier 
times,  could  he  have  performed  it  better  ?  Other  times,  other 
laws,  wall  it  be  said  ?  Very  true ;  and  we  do  not  allege  that 
all  that  was  good  fifteen  centuries  ago  is  necessarily  good  now. 
But  between  the  opinion  of  the  Fathers  and  that  of  the  pope  in 
these  two  briefs,  there  lies  a  gulf  which  not  fifteen  hundred,  no, 
not  fifteen  thousand  years  could  have  created,  had  men's  prin- 
ciples on  the  subject  remained  in  the  least  the  same.  And  w^hat 
mean  these  words — such  as  was  never  conceived  before  ?  Yes, 
doubtless,  the  Bible  societies  are  later  in  date  than  the  invention 
of  printing  ;  but  when  Chiysostom  said — "  Read,  read  the  hjcrip- 
tures  in  your  houses,"  while  others  are  delighted  with  the  enum- 
eration, such  as  the  Bible  societies  are  wont  to  make  in  our  day, 
of  the  languages  into  which  the  Bible  has  been  translated,  who 
will  ever  be  brought  to  believe  that  the  Fathers  w^ould  not  have 
blessed  God  for  an  institution  having  for  its  object  the  deposit- 
ing of  the  Scriptures,  if  possible,  in  all  houses  throughout  the 
world  ? 

In  1824,  on  the  occasion  of  the  jubilee  for  1825  being  pro- 
claimed, a  new  assault  w^as  made  on  that  book  on  which  Luther 
had  rested,  just  three  hundred  years  before,  as  liis  authority  for 
saying — "  We  know,  thank  God,  that  those  who  believe  in  the 
Gospel  have  a  jubilee  every  day."^'  "  Several  of  our  predeces- 
sors," says  Leo  XII.,  "  have  made  laws  for  averting  this  scourge 
(the  Bible  societies).  In  our  own  time,  Pius  YIL,  of  happy 
memory,  issued  two  briefs.  In  those  briefs,  we  find  testimonies 
drawn  either  from  Holy  Scripture  or  from  tradition,  to  shew  how 
hurtful  this  invention  is  to  faith  and  to  morals."  We  have  no 
need,  after  what  we  have  laid  before  our  readers,  to  say  what 
sophistry,  what  an  abuse  of  ideas  and  of  words,  have  been  re- 
quired for  the  purpose  of  concocting  "  these  testimonies  taken 
from  tradition  and  from  Scripture.''  The  pope  does  not  repro- 
duce them.  "  And  w^e,  too,"  he  proceeds  to  say,  "  that  we  may 
acquit  ourselves  of  our  apostolic  duty,  exhort  you  to  withdraw 
your  flocks  from  these  deadly  pastures."  "  Deadly  pastures  !'' 
The  Bible  I  And  if  he  says  this,  it  is  in  virtue  "  of  his  apostolic 
duty/''     Oh,  ye  popes  I  if  you  cannot  have  any  modesty  in  your 

'  Brief  to  the  Archbishop  of  Mohilew. 
2  On  the  Jubilee  Bull  of  1525. 


102  HISTORY    OF    THE    COUNCIL    OF  TRENT.  Book  II. 

ideas,  you  ought  to  preserve  some  at  least  in  the  use  you  make 
of  words,  and  avoid  courting,  from  sheer  wilfulness,  contrasts  so 
scandalous,  so  crushing. 

More  recently,^  Gregory  XYI.  also  entered  the  arena.  His 
bull,  though  more  moderate  in  its  terms,  is  still  more  inijust  in 
its  attacks,  and  still  more  severe  in  its  injunctions.  The  Protest- 
ants are  formally  accused  of  adulterating  the  Bible  ;  the  pope 
positively  refuses  to  believe  that  they  can  have  any  intention 
but  that  of  subverting  the  Church  and  destroying  souls  ;2  it  is 
in  this  bull  that  the  strange  falsification  of  which  we  have 
spoken  occurs.  Next,  "  Be  it  yours,  then,"  says  he,  addressing 
the  bishops,  "be  it  yours  to  remove  from  the  hands  of  the  faith- 
ful, the  Bible  translated  into  the  vulgar  tongue,"  that  is,  in 
plain  terms,  "to  take  the  Bible  from  them;"  for  what  difier- 
ence  can  there  be  between  a  French  Bible,  for  example,  for  the 
man  who  speaks  French,  and  a  Latin  Bible  for  the  man  who 
knows  Latin  ? 

"Will  it  be  said,  forsooth,  that  acquaintance  with  Latin  pre- 
supposes a  certain  amount  of  instruction,  a  favorable  condition 
to  which  the  Bible  is  less  dangerous  ?  Let  us  listen  to  Alex- 
ander VII. 2  "  Unless,  in  all  their  thoughts — those  who  apply 
to  letters,  cleave  immutably  to  all  the  decisions  of  the  Holy  See 
— the  more  penetration  and  force  a  man's  mind  has,  the  more 
is  he  apt  to  be  led  away  from  the  right  path."  But  who  risk 
most  not  adhering  immutably  to  the  decisions  of  the  Holy  See, 
if  not  those  to  whom,  just  because  they  are  educated,  that  which 
is  refused  to  the  vulgar,  must  perforce  be  granted  ?  To  these, 
therefore,  the  law  ought  to  be  specially  applied.  If  Rome  dared 
to  be  consistent,  they  would  be  the  first  to  be  designated  for  re- 
fusal. 

And  let  us  not  be  told,  in  reply,  of  those  whom  the  highest 
talents  have  not  prevented  from  being,  and  from  remaining, 
Roman  Catholics,  and  that,  too,  while  they  read  and  studied  the 
Bible.  We  have  already  seen  what  we  must  think  of  their 
alleged  submission  to  the  decrees  of  their  Church  ;  only  let  us 
note,  to  keep  within  the  bounds  of  our  subject,  that  while  these 
great  men  were,  or  appeared  to  be,  Roman  Catholics  on  various 
points,  there  was  certainly  one  point  at  least  on  which  they 
were  little  so  in  reality,  and  troubled  themselves  little  about  ap- 
pearing to  be  so ;  that  point  was  the  very  reading  of  the  book 

1  May,  1844. 

-  Pius  IX.,  in  his  encydical  letter  of  December,  1849,  calls  those  also 
who  circulate  the  Bible  "  the  enemies  of  human  society."  On  this  ques- 
tion the  popes  will  all  and  always  be  of  the  same  opinion. 

^  Letter  to  the  University  of  Louvain,  1665. 


Chap.  I.  154G.      CHURCH  TAKES  PRECEDENCE  OF  TIIK  TUl  TH.  108 

which  they  so  much  loved  and  admired.     "Was  there  mucli  of 
the  Roman  CathoHc  in  Pascal  when  he  said,  in  contradiction  to 
so  many  papal  decisions^ — "  Mahomet  established  his  authority 
in  a  prohibition  to  read,  and  Jesus  Christ  his,  in  commanding 
people  to  read  ?"      The  book  so  proscribed  was  spoken  of"  by  the 
Port- Royal  men  just  as  the  ancient  Fathers  spoke  of"  it,  just  as 
Luther  spoke  of  it.    They  desired  to  see  it  in  everybody's  hands  ; 
in  fact,  towards  this  they  did  everything  but  found  a  Bible  so- 
ciety.    Hence  De  Sacy's  version  ;  hence  those  bold  Avords  which 
were  condemned  at  Rome  in  1713  ^ — "  The  reading  of  Sacred 
Scripture  is  useful  at  all  times,  in  all  places,  and  to  all  sorts  of 
persons^      How  they  contrived  to  reconcile  this  idea  with  the 
Tridentine  decree,  we  shall  not  attempt  to  explain  ;  in  any  case 
this  were  more  easy  than  to  comprehend  how  Clement  XI.  could 
dare  to   denounce  as  false,  captious,  scandalous,  impious,   and 
blasphemous,"^  &c.,  assertions  which  might  have  been  shewn  to 
him,  word  for  Avord,  in  the  writings  of  twenty  Fathers.      But 
there  is  something  consolatory  in  .seeing  that  long  chain  of  testi- 
monies in  favour  of  the  Bible  being  left  free  to  all,  and  being 
read  by  all,  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  after  it  had  been  broken 
by  the  council,  taken  up  again  and  continued  by  such  men.     It 
is  owing  to  this,  that  at  the  risk  of  being  inconsistent,  they  gave 
truth  the  precedency  of  the  Church  ;  while  our  council,  on  the 
contrary,  we  shall  find,  always  placed  the  Church  before  the 
truth.      The  Church,  the  maintenance  of  the  Church,  such  was 
the  settled  idea,  the  ultima  ratio  of  almost  all  the  bishops,  in  all 
the  discussions,  and  all  the  decrees.     "  Is  there  a  God  ?"  said  a 
grand  lady  of  last  century  to  a  young  libertine  abbe.    "  Certain- 
ly," he  replied,  "seeing  that  I  am  an  abbe."      This  argument, 
which  in  that  case  was  but  an  impious  quibble,  will  be  found  at 
the  base  of  all  the  Roman  decisions.      Shall  tradition  be  put  on 
a  level   with  Scripture  ?      Certainly,   seeing  that  the   Church 
equally  rests  upon   it.       Shall   the   apocryphal   books  be   pro- 
nounced canonical  ?     Certainlv,  seeing  that  the  Church  avails 
herself  of  them  as  such.     Shall  the  Vulgate  be  made  the  sole 
official  and  unassailable  text  ?      Certainly,  for  new  translations 
might  shake  the  Church  and  disquiet  her  doctors.     Shall  the 
free  interpretation  of  the  Sacred  Books  be  interdicted  ?    Certain- 
ly, for  the  Reformation  sprang  from  that.    It  is  not  fifteen  years 
since  a  cardinal  said,  with  an  amusing  candour,  to  Lamennais — 
"  With  your  liberty,  what  will  become  of  the  Inquisition  ?"    Ever 
the  same  system.     This  is,  it  therefore  ought  to  be.      "  The  In- 
quisition exists ;  that,  therefore,  which  is  contrary  to  it,  ought 

^  Pascal's  Thoughts,  Art.  12.  '  Bull  Unigenitus. 

'  Nineteen  epithets  in  all. 


104  HISTORY   OF  THE   COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  U. 

not  to  exist."  Ever  the  bed  of  Procrustes ;  excepting  that  he, 
while  he  was  cutting  people  short,  made  no  attempt  to  convince 
them  that  he  did  them  no  harni.  The  Roman  Catholicism  of 
the  present  day,  wherever  it  has  not  the  mastery,  is  the  most 
noisy  of  all  parties  in  proclaiming  the  rights  of  conscience  and  of 
reason.  To  hear  it  speak,  one  must  needs  believe  that  it  is  pre- 
pared to  acknowledge  and  to  sanction  all  the  liberties  acquired 
by  mankind  in  the  course  of  three  centuries,  in  the  freest  states. 
But,  though  it  might  desire  this — flatly  contradicting  its  conduct 
wherever  it  reigns  supreme — could  it  do  so  ?  "Would  it  depend 
on  itself  to  abjure  laws  in  which  it  has  preached  the  contrary, 
not  temporarily,  but  in  virtue  of  principles  which  it  has  declared 
to  be  immutable,  eternal  ?  In  the  matter  of  promises,  which 
party  are  we  to  believe  ?  The  Gazette  de  France,  or  the 
Council  of  Trent  ?  The  Abbe  de  Genoude  preaching  a  liberty 
without  bounds,  or  Pope  Gregory  XYI.  calling  liberty  of  con- 
science "  an  absurd  maxim,  an  idle  dream," ^  and  the  liberty  of 
the  press  "  a  monstrous  liberty  which  cannot  be  sufficiently  de- 
tested, sufficiently  execrated."^  Shall  we  forget  that  in  1804, 
one  of  the  first  of  the  motives  put  forth  by  the  pope  for  refusing 
to  come  and  consecrate  Napoleon,  was  that  the  consecration 
oath  mentioned  the  liberty  of  worship  ?  Shall  we  forget  that, 
in  1832,  the  famous  Cardinal  Pacca,  the  pope's  prime  minister, 
wrote  as  follows :  "If,  under  certain  circumstances,  prudence 
demands  their  toleration  (that  is,  toleration  of  liberty  of  worship 
and  liberty  of  the  press)  as  one  tolerates  a  less  evil  to  avoid  a 
greater,  such  doctrines  never  can  be  presented  by  a  Roman 
Catholic  as  a  good  or  as  a  desirable  thing."  This,  at  least,  is 
frank ;  and  Avhat  is  hardly  so  is  that,  in  presence  of  such  declar- 
ations, there  are  still  to  be  seen  books,  sermons,  and  journals,  in 
which  the  name  of  Roman  Catholicism  is  mixed  up  with  the  most 
enlarged  ideas  of  toleration  and  emancipation.  Let  us  beware 
of  trusting  to  this  pretended  Romanism  which  is  not  that  of 
councils,  or  that  of  popes,  and  wliich  could  not  reign  for  two  days 
without  falling  back  perforce  into  what  it  has  ever  been,  what 
it  is  wherever  it  has  the  power,  what  it  declares,  when  it  durst 
venture,  that  it  ought  always  to  be.  But  how  should  these  men 
be  so  scrupulous  in  their  promises,  who  are  so  little  scrupulous 
in  speaking  of  the  past  ?  At  the  moment  we  are  writing,  it  is 
not  a  month  since,  at  Paris,  from  the  pulpit,  in  Notre  Dame,  be- 
fore thousands  of  auditors,  people  were  told  that  the  Roman 
Church  had  never  had  recourse  to  violence  whether  for  the  pur- 
pose of  extension  or  self-preservation.     It  is  not  two  years  since 

-  Encydical  Letter  of  1832. 

^  Libertas  ilia  teterrima,  ac  7nmquam  satis  c.rccranda,  ac  detestahilis. 


Chap.  I.  1516.       VIEWS    OF   THE   LIBERAL   ROMANISTS  100 

a  Roman  Catholic  pamphlet,  published  at  Geneva,  contained 
these  words — "  The  Inquisition  never  ibrced  any  one  to  become 
a  llonian  Catholic.  The  Inquisition  never  punished  any  but 
revolutionists  in  arms.  Never  will  it  penetrate  into  the  secret 
court  of  a  man's  conscience  to  ask  people,  What  do  ye  be- 
lieve?"^ Seriously  to  refute  such  assertions  were  almost  as  ridic- 
ulous as  to  have  made  them  ;  but  these  travesties  of  the  past  are 
w^iat  may  best  supply  the  least  distrustful,  if  they  be  ever  so 
little  not  incurably  blind,  with  the  proper  measure  for  estima- 
ting the  worth  of  engagements  taken  for  the  future. 

There  is  yet  another  thesis,  moreover,  which  is  neither  the  less 
false  nor  the  less  strange  for  being  less  indicative  of  bad  faith. 
That  for  which  Roman  Catholicism  has  been  most  reproached, 
that  for  which  all  candid  men,  even  the  most  Romanist  in  their 
religious  tenets,  have  come  at  last  to  reproach  it  for,  to  wit,  its 
intolerance,  its  despotism,  its  frightful  persecutions  at  no  very 
distant  period,  that  has  been  pertinaciously  attributed  by  some, 
not  to  Roman  Cathohcism,  but,  on  the  contrary,  to  its  decline. 
This  is  the  position  now  maintained  by  the  self-called  hberal 
Romanists  ;  it  was  this,  in  particular,  which  Lamennais  and  his 
disciples  were  developing  in  their  journal,  the  Avenir,  when 
Rome  shut  their  mouths.  Three  years  later,  Lamennais,  in  his 
Affaires  de  Rome,  still  recurred  to  it.  Profoundly  detached  as 
the  sequel  has  proved  him  to  be,  not  only  from  the  Roman  dis- 
ciphne,  but  from  all  the  Roman,  and,  alas  I  from  more  than  one 
Christian  doctrine,  he  could  not  make  up  his  mind  to  abandon 
his  old  sophistry.  If  the  pope,  in  his  famous  encyclical  letter  of 
1832,  condemned  in  the  lump  both  political  liberty  and  civil 
liberty,  both  the  liberty  of  worships  and  the  liberty  of  the  press 
— the  author  can  see  nothing  in  this  but  "  a  distressing  decline 
of  the  Roman  Catholic  spirit."  Then,  is  it  not  so  ?  if  the 
Catholic  sjyirit  w^ere  in  full  vigour,  were  the  pope  and  his  court 
no  longer  under  the  yoke  of  Austria,  he  would  have  nothing  more 
at  heart  than  to  give  his  people  all  the  liberties  wdiich  he  exe- 
crated in  1832.  You  do  not  believe  this  at  bottom  more  than 
we  do,  and  under  this  form  you  would  not  dare  to  affirm  it ;  but 
as  you  cannot  dream  of  making  us  accept  of  the  men  of  the  pres- 
ent day,  or  of  your  popedom  as  it  is  at  iiresent,  or  of  your  Cathol- 
icism such  as  it  has  ever  been,  some  method  must  be  taken  for 
associating  them,  for  good  or  evil,  with  the  ideas  and  the  in- 
stincts of  the  present  age.  Thus,  men  of  sincerity  may  be  found 
even  among  those  whom  our  first  impulse  would  urge  us  to  ac- 
cuse of  dishonesty.  Fondly  clinging  at  once  to  the  past  and  to 
the  present,  to  their  Church's  tenets  and  to  the  hberal  ideas  of 
^  Defense  de  la  religion  Catholiqne,  par  im  Cur^.     Geneve,  1844. 

E* 


106  HISTORY  OF   THE   COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  H. 

their  own  times,  they  cannot  resign  themselves,  in  spite  of  the 
plainest  acts  and  the  most  formal  declarations,  to  the  belief  that 
between  Rome  and  the  present  age  there  lies  so  wide  a  gulf. 
They  see  in  futurity  the  popedom,  better  informed,  extending 
its  hand  to  all  that  is  reasonable  and  good  in  the  ideas  which  it 
has  hitherto  abhorred  ;  but  as  they  would  not  dare  to  exhibit  it 
contradicting  itself,  this,  according  to  them,  would  be  but  a  re- 
turn to  the  true  and  eternal  principles  of  Catholicism  and  the 
Church.  Consolatory  fiction — which  has  nowhere  been  worse 
received  than  at  E-ome,  or  more  keenly  repelled  than  by  the 
very  power  which  ought,  we  are  told,  to  make  it  a  reality.^ 

Here,  it  would  seem,  we  have  got  far  from  Trent ;  but  really 
we  have  never  left  it.  It  would  not  be  doing  justice  to  the  his- 
tory of  a  law,  were  we  not  to  follow  it  out,  in  the  effects  that  it 
has  produced. 

After  having  voted  the  principles,  the  question  then  arose, 
under  what  form  were  they  to  be  embodied  in  decrees  ? 

Now,  it  was  usual  for  the  decrees  of  councils  either  to  be,  or 
not  to  be,  accompanied  with  anathemas,  according  as  the  infrac- 
tion of  them  should  be  deemed  heresy  or  mere  disobedience. 
The  anathema  is,  as  it  were,  the  seal,  on  seeing  which  the  faith- 
ful recognise  an  article  to  be  one  touching  the  faith,  and  one 
which  it  would  be  a  crime  to  deny  or  to  doubt. 

First  of  all,  this  method  of  sealing  and  sanctioning  all  that  is 
alleged  to  be  a  matter  of  faith,  calls  for  more  than  one  observa- 
tion. 

What,  then,  is  the  meaning  of  a  curse  attached  to  the  admis- 
sion or  the  non-admission  of  a  dogma  ?  "When  we  have  to  do 
with  an  overt  act,  all  well.  "  Cursed  is  lie  who  shall  have 
struck  his  father."  "  Cursed  is  he  who  knowingly  causes  his 
brother  to  sin."  Still  it  must  not  be  abused  ;  this  would  ere 
lonof  be  found  far  from  Christian.  But  when  we  have  to  do 
with  an  idea,  a  dogma,  as  it  is  not  directly  in  our  power  to  be 
able  to  believe  it,  or  not  to  believe  it,  in  such  matters  there  can 
be  no  farther  blame  than  the  negligence  one  may  have  shewn 
in  procuring  instruction.  But,  in  the  Homan  Church,  there  is 
no  room  for  negligence  :  all  that  you  have  to  believe  is  present- 
ed to  you  and  imposed  on  you.  When,  accordingly,  you  are 
anathematized  for  not  believing,  it  is  uertainly  on  the  non-ac- 
ceptance of  an  idea ;  that  is  to  say,  it  is  on  a  fact  independent 

^  These  reflections  were  written  under  Gregory  XVI.  Will  they  re- 
quire modification  under  his  successor?  That  he  has  the  will,  is  pos- 
sible; that  he  has  the  power,  we  do  not  believe.  The  libei-ties  grant- 
ed by  a  pope  will  always  of  necessity  be  of  small  consequence  com- 
pared with  what  is  elsewhere  understood  b}'-  that  term. 


Chap.  I.  154G.    ANATHEMAS— HOW   EMPLOYED  BY   THE   COUNCIL       107 

of  your  Avill  that  the  malediction  falls.  "  Believe  this,"  you  are 
told.  "  In  my  soul  and  conscience,"  you  reply,  "  I  can  not." 
"  Well,  then,  be  accursed."  Such  is  the  exact  translation  of 
every  decree  on  matters  of  faith  accompanied  with  an  anathema. 
It  is  either  this,  or  it  is  nothing  ;  nothing  but  a  big  "word  with 
which  to  frighten  the  simple. 

That  -word  Rome  understood,  and  had  always  caused  it  to 
be  understood  in  the  most  terrifying  sense  that  it  could  bear. 
Anathema,  among  the  Greeks,  signified  originally  deposited  in 
a  tcmph  consecrated  to  a  god  ;  afterwards  it  meant  consecra- 
ted to  the  infernal  gods,  that  is,  accursed.  In  passing  over  to 
Christianity,  this  last  meaning  Avas  farther  aggravated  by  the 
idea  of  a  far  more  terrible  hell  than  that  of  the  pagans.  To  be 
anathema,  meant  to  be  damned,  and  damned  to  all  eternity. 

Will  it  be  said  that  St.  Paul  used  this  expression  ?  In  fact, 
"  If  any  man  preach  any  other  Gospel,  let  him  be  anathema," 
Gal.  i.  9.  But  besides  that  this  formula,  still  quite  pagan,  could 
not  have  had  any  A^ery  precise  meaning  under  his  pen,  it  is  one 
thing  to  curse,  in  general,  whosoever  announces  aJiother  Gospel, 
and  quite  another  thing  to  attach  this  awful  sanction  to  each  of 
the  points  of  detail  of  which  it  is  maintained  that  the  Christian 
faith  is  composed.  Then,  again,  has  the  Church  necessarily  the 
right  to  do  what  an  Apostle  did  under  the  guidance  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  ?  Every  objection  to  its  infallibility — and  we  have  seen, 
whether  there  be  few  of  them — is  an  objection  to  the  right  of 
the  anathema. 

Just  as  it  was  about  to  exercise  this  formidable  right  the 
council  hesitated.  Not  that  it  did  not  believe  it  was  fully  in 
possession  of  it ;  but  the  four  decrees  that  had  been  made^  were 
of  a  nature  diverse  enough  to  admit  of  the  question  being  put, 
how  far  it  was  right  that  they  should  be  placed  in  the  same 
line,  and  be  followed  by  the  same  sanction  ?  The  doctors  who 
were  consulted  did  not  agree.  They  sent  back  the  question  to 
the  bishops,  and  still  less  mutual  agreement  was  there  among 
them.  Truly  an  odd  spectacle,  that  of  a  council  directed  from 
on  hifrh  for  the  regulation  of  the  faith,  and  which,  after  havino; 
pronounced  on  four  points,  did  not  well  know  whether  it  had 
made  decrees  on  articles  of  faith,  or  mere  decrees  on  discipline  I 

Two  parties  were  seen  from  the  first  to  take  shape  ;  the  one 
wanting  four  anathemas,  the  other  desiring  that  there  might  be 
none.  To  the  latter  it  was  objected  that  the  council  would 
have  the  appearance  of  not  having  made  articles  of  faith,  or  of 
having  not  believed  that  it  had  the  power  to  make  them  ;  to  the 

^  Tradition,  the  Apocryphal  books,  the  Vulgate,  the  Interpretation 
of  the  Scriptures. 


108  HISTORY    OF   THE    COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  II. 

former,  that  it  would  be  very  hard  to  envelop  in  the  same  con- 
demnation an  infidel  who  should  reject  the  Bible,  and  a  learned 
man  who  should  reject  the  Vulgate.  After  long  parley ings  a 
middle  course  was  adopted,  and  the  decision  was  as  follows : 

On  the  first  point,  anathema.  Anathema,  accordingly,  to 
whosoever  should  appeal  from  tradition  to  the  Scriptures,  from 
revelation  falsified,  or  at  least  falsijiable,  to  revelation  remain- 
ing intact. 

On  the  second  point,  again  an  anathema.  Anathema,  ac- 
cordingly, to  whosoever  shall  deny  the  canonicity  of  any  one  of 
those  books  which  had  passed  for  two  thousand  years  as  apocry- 
phal, and  which  no  doctor  until  then,  even  of  those  who  accept- 
ed them,  had  dared  to  place  in  the  same  rank  with  the  rest  of 
the  Scriptures. 

On  the  third  and  fourth  point  (the  Yulgate  and  the  interpre- 
tation of  the  Scriptures),  a  mere  prohibition,  but,  as  we  have 
seen,  a  prohibition  formal  and  absolute.  Let  none,  on  any  pre- 
text, reject  the  Vulgate  ;  let  none  take  it  into  his  head  to  inter- 
pret Scripture  against  the  sense  which  the  Church  has  held  and 
holds,  or  against  the  unanmious  consent  of  the  fathers  ;^  that 
unanimous  consent  which,  be  it  said  in  passing,  hardly  goes  be- 
yond the  existence  of  God,^ 

These  prohibitions  entered,  accordingly,  into  a  decree  said  to 
be  of  reformation,  and  decrees  of  that  kind  were  considered  as 
not  bearing  anathema.  This,  doubtless,  was  the  best  thing  that 
could  be  done  ;  but  it  was  complained  of  by  many.  They  called 
to  mind  that,  in  speaking  of  reformation,  and  of  the  reforms  that 
were  to  be  efi^ected  by  means  of  a  council,  everj'body  had  in  view 
the  abuses  that  prevailed  in  the  Church  ;  why,  then,  they  would 
say,  attack  first  of  all  abuses  that  exist  only  among  the  Pro- 
testants ?  Is  this  the  practical  interpretation  that  is  to  be  put 
on  the  decision  that  discipline  and  faith  should  be  treated  simul- 
taneously ?  These  reproaches  were  rather  specious  than  just ; 
the  assembly  thus  far  had  been  unable  to  pursue  any  other 
course.  But  when  it  was  added  that  the  legates  were  very 
well  pleased  at  being  able  to  delay  as  long  as  possible  the  ex- 
amination of  real  abuses,  nothing  was  said  that  the  sequel  did 
not  justify. 

Let  us  mention,  to  conclude  this  subject,  the  prohibition  against 

^  Aut  etiam  contra  unanimura  consensum  patrum. 

2  On  this  last  subject  we  refer  the  reader  to  q\ute  a  late  production 
by  a  priest  who  has  broken  with  Rome,  M.  Trivier  of  Dijon.  There  is 
a  curious  chapter  in  it  on  the  perplexities  of  the  man  who  should  seri- 
ously set  himself  to  search  in  the  two  hundred  4to  vols,  of  the  Collection 
of  the  Fathers,  what  he  has  to  believe  on  any  point  whatever. 


Chap.  I.  1546.      THE   LEGATES'   DISTRUST   OF    THE    MINORITY.  109 

employing  words  of  Scripture  in  pleasantry,  sorcery,  flattery  to 
the  great,  &c.  A  prohibition,  also,  against  ])ubhsliing  aught  on 
religion  without  the  consent  and  approval  ot"  the  bishops.  Tliis 
naturally  followed  all  the  rest,  but  with  the  addition  of  an  en- 
croachment on  the  civil  authority,  mention  being  made  of  fines 
to  be  inflicted  on  contraveners.  This  decree,  accordingly,  was 
never  admitted  beyond  the  states  of  the  pope.  Governments  the 
farthest  from  wishing  to  establish  freedom  of  the  press  among 
their  subjects,  have  not  recognised  the  Church's  right  to  pre- 
vent it. 

Everything,  then,  was  now  ready  for  the  session  ;  and  yet 
the  legates  were  not  without  apprehension.  The  greater  num- 
ber of  the  decisions  that  had  been  taken  had  not  been  unani- 
mous. There  had  been  disquieting  minorities  which,  even  after 
the  vote,  had  nowise  shewn  by  their  looks  and  manner,  that 
they  believed  the  voice  of  the  majority  to  have  been  the  voice 
of  God.  Naclantus,  bishop  of  Chioggia,  went  so  far  as  to  treat 
as  impious  the  idea  of  putting  tradition  on  an  equality  with 
Scripture. 

At  a  final  preparatory  meeting,  the  Cardinal  del  Monte  made 
a  speech,  in  which,  after  much  commendation  of  the  wisdom 
and  the  learning  of  the  fathers,  he  adroitly  insisted  on  the  neces- 
sity of  having  at  the  public  meeting  but  one  heart,  one  soul, 
and,  above  all,  but  one  voice.  As  some  distrust  was  still  felt 
on  this  head,  the  Cardinal  Santa  Croce  called  a  special  meet- 
ing of  those  who  had  shown  themselves  the  most  intractable 
on  the  article  of  the  Vulgate,  and  conjured  them  anew  not  to 
disturb,  by  an  imprudent  veto,  the  imposing  harmony  of  the 
public  voting. 

The  session  was  held,  accordingly,  on  the  8th  of  April,  1546. 
Five  cardinals  and  forty-eight  prelates  were  present.  The  ex- 
hortations of  the  legates  had  not  been  thrown  away  :  there 
was  no  protest.  Only  histead  of  replying  by  the  word  x>lncet 
(I  approve),  the  Bishop  of  Chioggia  said,  I  ivill  obey.  Another 
bishop  repeated,  but  in  writing,  the  petition  that  the  title  of 
representing  the  ^miversal  Church  should  be  added  to  those 
of  the  council.  Two  others,  in  fine,  declared  that  they  did 
not  demand  the  adoption,  at  that  moment,  of  this  title,  but  with 
the  understanding  that  the  council  should  assume  it  when  it 
saw  fit. 

Notwithstanding  the  happy  issue  of  the  public  sitting,  and 
the  incontestable  legality  of  the  decrees  thus  admitted,  no  little 
trepidation  was  felt  at  the  council's  having  cut  through,  at  the 
first  stroke,  so  many  questions,  so  much  controverted  and  so 


110  HISTORY   OF    THE    COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  U. 

grave  ;  and  it  was  not  clear  that,  in  particular,  the  pope  would 
not  be  in  some  trepidation  from  the  same  cause.  In  sending 
him  the  decrees,  his  legates  made  no  secret  that  they  were  far 
from  having  entire  confidence  in  the  solidity  of  the  structure 
they  had  just  erected  ;  they  almost  prevailed  on  him  to  put  off^ 
from  a  dread  of  compromising  himself,  the  confirmation  and 
publication  of  these  first  acts.  But  the  pope  was  not  a  man  to 
disquiet  himself  about  so  little.  The  decrees  suited  his  purposes  : 
that  was  enough.  Besides,  was  not  any  defect  they  might  have 
in  point  of  authority  about  to  be  supplied  by  his  confirming 
them  ?  Accordingly  he  did  confirm  them,  and  nothing  more 
needed  be  said. 

All  was  said,  in  fact,  in  the  Roman  point  of  view,  seeing  that 
it  acknowledges  nothing  superior  to  a  council-general  approved 
by  the  pope.     In  reality,  what  had  been  gained  ? 

For  the  present  nothing.  The  spectacle  had  been  presented 
to  the  Protestants  of  the  numerous  uncertainties  amid  which  the 
very  foundations  of  the  faith  that  people  pretended  to  impose  on 
them  shook  and  tottered ;  the  council  had  thrust  itself,  at  the 
very  entrance,  on  questions  which  could  not  be  treated  without 
letting  it  be  seen  that  tradition  itself  was  on  the  Protestant  side  ; 
it  had  pronounced  itself,  in  fine,  on  two  points,  perhaps  on  three, 
in  a  sense  which  had  never  yet  been  held  by  any  one  university, 
or  any  one  doctor  of  any  estimation. 

For  the  future  a  great  deal.  "  Fortune,"  said  the  ancients, 
"  helps  those  who  dare  ;"  and  this  is  not  less  true  in  the  world 
of  ideas  than  in  that  of  politics  or  of  arms.  Every  principle 
boldly  laid  down,  every  doctrine  which  takes  a  fixed  position, 
by  that  very  fact,  acquires  a  solidity  which  is  almost  independent 
of  the  solidity  or  fragility  of  the  foundations.  When  an  army  is 
routed,  let  but  a  single  man  stop  in  his  flight,  and  it  may  happen 
that  all  will  stop.  In  a  brook  that  sweeps  away  a  mass  of  in- 
coherent bodies,  let  but  one  of  these  fiLX  itself  in  the  bed  of  the 
stream,  and  you  have  an  island  begun  which  will  perhaps  out- 
last even  the  banks  at  the  side.  Such  has  been  the  history, 
such  is  the  present  state,  of  the  Roman  faith.  Until  1546, 
although  a  certain  number  of  points  appeared  to  be  fixed,  it  was 
no  more  in  reality  than  a  huge  river  in  which  the  elements  of 
the  future  land  lay  tossing  about.  Let  but  one  of  these  become 
fixed,  and  were  it  no  more  than  a  pile  of  grass,  all  would  be 
done.  But  whence  was  this  pile  of  grass  to  be  taken  ?  To 
what  should  be  hooked  on  (let  us  be  forgiven  this  word)  the 
equality  of  tradition  and  the  Scriptures?  For  it  was  neces- 
sarily with  that  they  had  to  begin,  and,  as  long  as  that  point 


Caap.  I.  1546.    TACIT  COMPROMISE  BETWEEN  ROME  AND  TRENT.    HI 

should  remain  afloat,  the  utmost  result  Avould  have  hccn  but  a 
floating  island.  To  what  ?  the  council  has  not  told  u.s,  and  it 
would  have  found  it  not  a  little  diflicult  to  do  so.  It  assumed 
the  thing  to  be  admitted,  demonstrated,  incontestable.  The  con- 
temporary generation  doubted  and  said  nothing  ;  the  following 
generation  believed.  But  the  question,  the  eternal  question,  is 
to  know  whether  a  man  of  common  sense  can  admit  on  the  faith 
of  the  council,  what  the  very  presidents  of  that  council  admitted 
only  while  pale  and  trembling  at  the  very  thought  of  their 
audacity. 

Meanwhile,  in  spite  of  their  having  been  solemnly  proclaimed 
at  Trent,  the  pope  ordained  the  publication  of  the  decrees  as  if 
that  had  still  remained  to  be  done,  and  as  if,  without  his  con- 
currence, it  were  of  no  signification.  AVe  have  said  elsewhere 
how  false  this  position  of  his  was.  "We  observed  that,  hoAvever 
people  may  try  to  elude  the  question,  we  have  only  to  transport 
ourselves  to  the  epoch  of  the  holding  of  the  council,  in  order  to 
see  that  the  difficulties  it  presents  are  incapable  of  any  solution. 
What  was  most  dreaded  M^as  being  led  oft  into  an  explanation. 
The  pope  would  have  shuddered  to  think  Df  provoking  such 
manifestations  as  those  of  Basle  and  of  Constance,  where  the 
councils  declared  that  they  could  dispense  wdtli  the  pontifical 
sanction ;  the  council,  on  its  side,  did  not  like  either  to  break 
with  the  pope,  for  the  Church  had  more  need  of  a  chief  than  ever, 
or  to  submit  ostensibly  to  that  chief,  for  that  would  have  been 
to  renounce  all  influence  beyond  Italy.  Hence  the  tacit  com- 
promise that  had  united  Rome  and  Trent.  People  wdio  at  bot- 
tom are  least  agreed,  are  often  the  very  persons  who  apparently 
are  most  agreed.  A  friend  with  whom  you  are  generally  on 
good  terms,  you  are  not  afraid  to  contend  with  on  some  points ; 
but  you  studiously  avoid  touching  on  what  may  give  oflence  to 
a  person  from  whom  you  feel  that  you  are  separated  by  a  pro- 
found difierence  of  sentiments,  and  nothing,  to  all  external  ap- 
pearance, prevents  your  being  thought  intimate  friends.  As  a 
farther  precaution,  the  pope  ordered  his  legates  to  communicate 
to  him,  before  the  final  voting,  all  the  drafts  of  decrees,  or,  to  speak 
more  correctly,  all  the  amendments  discussed  in  the  asssembly, 
for  the  drafts  themselves  behoved  to  come  from  Rome.  The 
legates,  to  the  best  of  their  powers,  were  not  to  allow  the  vote 
to  be  taken  until  after  the  pope  should  have  replied  ;  it  would  be 
for  them  to  prevent  anything  from  being  voted  in  opposition  to 
his  views,  and,  in  this  manner,  all  confliction  would  be  avoided. 
It  was  quite  understood,  moreover,  that  this  arrangement  was  to 
remain  secret,  and  that  the  decrees  were  to  be  understood  as  not 


112  HISTORY   OF    THE    COUNCIL   OF    TRENT.  Book  II. 

transmitted  to  Rome,  until  after  the  session  in  which  they  were 
to  be  promulgated.  Were  there  nothing  to  be  saved  but  appear- 
ances, this  was  much — it  was  everything. 

But  there  were  things  in  which  appearances  could  be  saved 
no  longer.  The  emperor  kept  himself  aloof.  The  pope  felt 
himself  affronted  both  by  his  silence  and  by  his  words. 

First,  there  was  not  a  single  German  bishop  at  Trent,  and 
none  could  doubt  that  their  absence  was  owing  to  secret  orders 
to  that  effect.  The  procurators  of  the  Archbishop  of  Mayence 
had  remained  only  a  few  weeks  ;  the  Bishop  of  Augsburg  had 
sent  one,  but  he  was  a  native  of  Savoy.  A  most  severe  sum- 
mons had  been  prepared  for  the  session  of  8  th  April,  to  be  ad- 
dressed to  the  absent  bishops,  particularly  those  who  might  be 
seen  from  the  windows  of  Trent,  says  Pallavicini,  that  is  to  say, 
to  the  Germans,  several  of  whom  were,  in  pomt  of  fact,  situate 
but  a  few  leagues  from  the  council ;  but  the  emperor  took  offence 
at  this,  and  the  decree,  though  voted,  had  to  be  left  out.  Thus 
he  was  evidently  reserving  for  himself  the  possibility  of  refusing 
to  recognise  the  council,  and  his  prelates  were  no  more  to  be 
reckoned  upon  than  liimself. 

It  was  much  worse  to  see  him  continue  to  treat  as  an  arch- 
bishop and  a  prince  that  same  Fleeter  of  Cologne  whom  the 
pope  had  first  summoned  to  appear  before  him,  and  next  had 
excommunicated.  And  yet  the  sentence  was  anything  but  se- 
cret. It  had  been  solemnly  published  at  Home,  and  that,  too, 
in  the  strongest  terms.  The  prince-archbishop's  subjects  had 
been  loosed  from  their  oath  of  allegirance  ;  his  rights  and  his 
title  had  been  given  to  his  coadjutor,  Adolphus  von  Schauen- 
burg.  It  pertained  to  the  emperor  to  execute  this  decree ;  but 
Hermann,  although  a  Lutheran,  or  almost  a  Lutheran,  had  re- 
mained faithful  to  him,  and  he  had  no  wish  to  throw  him  into 
the  ranks  of  the  Protestant  confederation.  In  vain  did  Paul 
III.  entreat  and  urge ;  the  emperor  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  all  he 
said.  It  was  Hermann  who  gave  way,  but  witliout  appearing 
to  obey  the  pope  ;  he  quitted  Cologne  and  resigned,  as  if  of  his 
own  free  will.  For  the  rest  we  do  not  approve  what  the  Ger- 
man Protestants  said  on  this  occasion,  alleging  that  the  pope, 
during  the  sitting  of  a  council,  could  not  condemn  a  person  on 
points  upon  which  that  council  had  not  yet  come  to  any  vote. 
The  pope  was  incontestably  in  the  right ;  and  we  have  seen 
with  pain,  be  it  said  in  passing,  that  the  greater  number  of 
priests  converted  in  our  days  to  Protestantism,  have  indulged  in 
recriminations  of  this  sort.  They  admit  that  they  are  no  longer 
Roman  Catholics,  and  they  exclaim  against  despotism  because 


Chap.  I.  1540.        LET    US    CONDUCT   THE    WAR    FAlllLY.  113 

they  are  turned  out  of  their  places.  The  bishops  have  only  done 
their  duty.  Declare  war  against  the  Church,  all  well ;  but  let 
it  be  in  lair  fight,  not  by  chicane. ^ 

*  Here  our  national  views,  as  well  as  individual  convictions,  compel 
us  to  dissent  from  the  author.  AVcre  the  Church  autocratic  in  the 
person  of  the  pope  or  of  the  bishops,  difference  from  them  might  legit- 
imate the  deposition  or  dismissal  of  parish  priests.  But  it  is  as  min- 
isters of  Christ's  Church  that  those  priests  de  jure  hold  office,  exercise 
their  functions,  and  are  paid.  That  Church  is  an  absolute  monarch}-, 
and  against  the  rights  of  Christ's  crown  no  prescription  runs.  Ue  jiire 
therefore  the  pi-iest's  office,  functions,  and  stipend  commence,  not  with 
his  allegiance  to  a  usurper  in  the  person  of  the  pope,  and  with  liis  pro- 
fession of  doctrines  that  are  not  those  of  Christ's  Gospel,  but  with  liis 
abjuring  that  allegiance  and  those  doctrines.  To  submit  without  pro- 
test to  dismissal  when  converted  to  the  Gospel,  may  be  prudent,  but 
cannot  surely  consist  with  the  testimony  required  on  such  an  occasion 
from  the  priest. — To. 


CHAPTER    II. 

(1546.) 

SESSION    V.       DECREES     ON     ORIGINAL     SIN     AND     ON     PREACHING. 
THE    IMMACULATE    CONCEPTION. 

Altercations  about  the  clioice  of  subjects — Preaching — The  bishops  and 
the  monks — Mutual  recriminations — Indemnifications  to  the  bishops 
— General  relaxation  of  morals  to  the  advantage  of  the  popes — Lu- 
theran opinion — Question  of  original  sin — Four  problems — Infants 
dying  without  baptism — The  Roman  catechism — All  explanations 
but  by  anathemas,  abandoned — Reflections  on  this  subject — Five 
canons  —  The  immaculate  conception  —  Historical  views  —  Fluctua- 
tions— How  the  Roman  dogmas  establish  themselves — Fifth  Session 
— ^Disputed  votings. 

The  fifth  session  had  been  fixed  for  the  17th  of  June.  Pre- 
parations had  now  to  be  made  for  it. 

Then  were  renewed  the  disputes  about  the  selection  of  sub- 
jects. The  legates  had  been  ordered  so  to  arrange  matters  that 
original  sin  should  occupy  the  council  next ;  Charles  the  Fifth's 
ambassador,^  supported  by  some  bishops,  called  Germans  al- 
though all  of  them  were  Spaniards  or  Italians,^  insisted  anew 
that  the  council  should  keep  to  subjects  calling  for  reformation. 
As  for  the  determination  to  which  they  had  come  to  keep  the 
two  things  abreast,  these  prelates  observed,  that  in  soliciting 
that  course,  their  main  object  had  been  to  prevent  their  being 
absorbed  with  questions  of  faith,  to  the  exclusion  of  the  others ; 
there  were  to  be  no  sessions,  consequently,  without  disciplinary 
decrees,  but  nothing  obliged  them  to  mingle  with  these,  decrees 
on  matters  of  faith.  This  was,  no  doubt,  a  sophism,  but  the 
emperor  was  behind.  After  many  twistings  and  windings,  the 
legates  were  once  more  compelled  to  allow  the  tenor  of  their 
instructions  to  be  seen  ;  they  declared  that  such  was  the  will  of 
the  pope,  but  offered,  at  the  same  time,  to  write  to  him  anew. 

This  proposal  was  accepted  ;  and  while  waiting  for  the  reply, 
the  members  occupied  themselves  with  some  internal  regulations. 
It  was  ordered  that  there  should  be  three  sorts  of  congregations, 
first,  those  in  which  the  divines  should  deliver  their  views  on 

^  Francis  de  Toledo,  successor  to  Diego  de  Mendoza. 
^  Of  the  Emperor's  states  in  Italy. 


Chap.  II.  1540.      RELIGIOUS    TEACHING— BISHOPS    AND    MONKS.  115 

points  of  doctrine  ;  next,  those  in  which  the  doctors  of  the  canon 
law  should  discuss  questions  of  discipline  ;  the  third,  in  fine, 
where  none  hut  the  bishops  should  be  admitted,  and  in  which 
the  decrees  should  be  drawn  up. 

Tliis  over,  as  the  pope  shewed  no  haste  to  reply,  an  important 
point  was  resumed,  wliich  had  repeatedly  been  touched  upon  in 
the  course  of  the  labours  of  the  fourth  session,  to  wit,  religious 
teaching,  and  in  particular,  preachinf^. 

The  question  was  a  thorny  one.  Were  they  not  all  that  ?  "We 
shall  hardly  find  one  in  which  Rome  had  not  to  hold  the  balance 
between  opposing  ambitions  and  interests,  yet,  though  opposite, 
equally  necessary  to  the  existence  and  consolidation  of  her  em- 
pire. 

In  the  case  in  hand,  the  bishops  were  ranged  on  the  one 
side,  and  the  monks  on  the  other  ;  the  bishops,  charged  in  point 
of  rio-ht  with  all  that  bore  on  religious  instruction,  the  monks, 
charged  in  point  of  fact,  and  for  more  than  three  centuries,  with 
the  delivery  of  sermons,  and  now  with  catechising.  The  bishops 
made  no  demand  to  have  the  monks  deprived  of  those  functions  ; 
but  they  wished  to  regain  the  power  of  investing  them  with 
that  trust.  As  the  religious  orders  held  only  of  the  pope,  the 
episcopal  authority  had  been  constantly  exposed  to  encroach- 
ments from  men  who  could  plant  themselves,  with  the  pope's 
sanction,  in  the  midst  of  a  diocese,  preaching,  hearing  confessions, 
and  drawing  to  themselves  the  minds  and  hearts  of  the  people. 
It  was  like  a  second  net  thrown  over  that  of  the  hierarchy,  and 
enveloping  the  hierarchy  itself,  "The  monks,"  said  Luther, 
"  are  the  best  fowlers  the  pope  has."  And  when  Henry  YIIL, 
in  the  first  commencements  of  his  reformation,  seemed  disposed 
to  preserve  them,  "  It  is  as  if  he  had  done  nothing,"  said  the  old 
monk  ;  "  he  torments  the  body  of  the  popedom,  but  he  preserves 
its  soul."  And  it  was,  in  fact,  for  the  bishops  a  perpetual  sub- 
ject of  unpleasantness,  contestation,  and  disgusts. 

Great  keenness  was  shewn,  accordingly,  in  the  council,  in  at- 
tacking the  pretensions  and  intrigues  of  the  monks  ;  but  the  de- 
fence was  no  less  keenly  maintained  than  the  attack.  As  there 
were,  among  the  divines,  representatives  of  all  the  orders,  they 
spoke,  they  wrote,  and  the  episcopate  was  forced  to  listen  to  some 
harsh  truths.  They  proved  that  if  they  had  taken  possession  of 
the  pulpits,  they  had  found  them  unoccupied,  seeing  that  the 
bishops  and  parish  priests  had  altogether  abandoned  preaching ; 
they  shewed  that  the  papal  bulls,  in  virtue  of  which  they  taught 
and  preached,  had  been  granted  generally  in  view  only  of  posi- 
tive wants,  incontestably  proved  to  exist.  The  popes,  it  is  true, 
Ir.id  often  let  it  be  seen  that  this  neglect  of  preaching  was  any- 


116  HISTORY   OF  THE   COUNCIL  OF   TRENT.  Book  II. 

thing  but  displeasing  to  them  ;  and  that  the  desire  of  instructing 
the  populations  of  Christendom,  was  neither  their  only,  nor  their 
principal  motive  ;i  but  the  monks  were  at  bottom  in  the  right ; 
and  this  discussion  fully  bore  out  the  Protestants  in  one  of  their 
heaviest  charges  against  the  Church.  They  accused  it  of  having 
suffered  the  habit  of  instructing  and  preaching  to  die  out  among 
the  whole  body  of  the  clergy  to  whom  was  committed  the  care  ot 
souls ;  and  it  was  easy  for  them  to  shew,  both  from  Scripture 
and  by  history,  how  opposed  this  neglect  was  to  the  laws  and 
to  the  practice  of  the  first  ages.  Look  to  the  epistles  of  St.  Paul, 
and  see  if  a  pastor,  a  bishop,  be  not,  before  all  else,  a  preacher. 
Rome  had  turned  him  into  a  priest,  in  the  pagan  sense  of  the 
word  ;  at  the  very  most,  in  the  Hebrew  sense  of  it ;  a  sacrificer, 
a  Levite,  an  arranger  of  ceremonies.  There  have  been  certain 
ameliorations  in  this  respect,  still  these  are  not  found  in  countries 
where  Roman  Catholicism  prevails  without  control ;  but,  in  the 
sixteenth  century,  this  reproach  attached  to  almost  the  entire 
body  of  the  clergy. 

Thus  the  council  had  first  to  put  the  Church  in  a  condition 
to  dispense  with  the  services  of  the  preaching  monks,  before  it 
proceeded  to  attack  them.  Besides,  as  they  had  got  their  priv- 
ileges from  the  popes,  it  was  felt  that  the  pope  alone  could 
meddle  with  them  ;  the  smallest  decision  to  the  contrary,  would 
have  been  an  invasion  of  his  rights,  and  would  have  led  to  the 
verification  of  those  rights  themselves — that  is,  to  the  most  dan- 
gerous of  all  investigations.  The  more  incontestable  it  was  that 
a  pope  of  the  sixteenth  century  could  not  have  entertained  the 
idea  of  sending  into  a  diocese  men  who  should  be  independent 
of  the  bishop,  the  greater  would  have  been  the  imprudence  of  de- 
claring this  by  a  vote  ;  for  a  door  would  thus  have  been  opened 
for  the  historical  examination  of  all  rights,  and  there  were  many 
which  the  most  independent  bishops  were  as  little  desirous 
as  the  pope  was  to  submit  to  the  ordeal  of  verification.  Thus, 
some  from  devotion  to  the  pope,  others  from  necessity,  or  frt)m 
reason,  all  were  of  one  mind  in  thinking  that  on  this  point,  with- 
out his  sanction,  nothing  could  be  done. 

He  declared,  in  fact,  that  the  council  had  no  concern  with  the 
privileges  of  the  monks  ;  but,  reserving  his  own  rights  in  the 
matter,  he  authorized  the  legates  to  grant  the  bishops  all  the  in- 
demnifications that  would  not  endanger  that  principle.  Two 
were  found  ;  one,  that  no  monk  or  friar  should  preach  without 

*  See  St.  Bernard,  De  consideratione.  Besides,  he  speaks  with  great 
force  against  tlie  independence  of  the  monk;^.  "  O  liberty,  worse  than 
slavery !  I  would  not  have  a  liberty  that  imposes  on  me  the  debasing 
yoke  of  pride." 


Chap.  II.  1546.      THE   BISHOPS   COMMANDED  TO    PREACH.  117 

the  bishop's  permission,  beyond  the  monasteries  and  convents  of 
his  order  ;  the  other,  that  in  every  cathedral  there  should  be  a 
doctor  of  theolo<ry,  nominated  and  directed  by  the  bishop.  Jt 
was  also  decreed  that  there  should  be  one  in  each  of  the  princi- 
pal monasteries ;  but  it  was  not  well  known  what  right  the  bishop 
could  exercise  over  him,  that  would  not  infringe  on  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  order.  The  idea  was  therefore  entertained  of 
putting  him  under  the  superintendence  of  the  bishop,  acting,  not 
as  bishop  of  the  place,  but  as  the  pope's  delegate  ;  a  distinction 
which,  as  we  shall  see,  was  very  helpful  m  the  sequel.  This  was 
the  best  measure  that  could  be  fallen  upon  for  restoring  to  the 
bishops,  without  afl'ecting  the  rights  of  the  popes,  part  of  those 
of  which  the  Holy  See  had  deprived  them  ;  but  we  shali  al.'o 
find  that  they  did  not  always  lend  themselves  with  a  good  grace 
to  the  acceptance  of  that  as  a  favour  which  they  could  claim  as 
a  right. 

As  for  the  rest,  the  abbots  themselves,  much  embarrassment 
as  they  caused  to  the  bishops,  were  not  altogether  secure  from 
the  encroachments  of  Rome.  In  the  face  of  his  vow  of  obedi- 
ence to  his  own  superior,  every  monk  could  purchase  the  pope's 
intervention,  and  practically  escape  from  the  authority  of  his 
chiefs.  In  1517,  some  abbots  in  Germany  having  forbidden  their 
monks  to  accept  Tctzel's  scandalous  indulgences,  the  latter,  in 
virtue  of  a  papal  commission,  forced  upon  them  confessors,  with 
power  to  absolve  all  who  had  recourse  to  them,  even  against  the 
rules  of  their  order.  Thus,  provided  all  things  should  be  found 
more  and  more  directly  hnked  to  the  papal  throne,  Rome  troubled 
itself  little  about  relaxing  all  the  bonds  of  obedience  and  order 
in  the  inferior  regions  of  the  Church. 

The  replies  given  by  the  monks  were  not  without  effect. 
The  decree  on  preaching  commences  with  rules  which  Luther 
might  have  subscribed.  "As  it  is  no  less  necessary  to  preach 
the  Gospel  than  to  teach  it  in  the  schools,  and  as  it  is  even  the 
'prindiml  fimction  of  bishops}  the  holy  council  ordains  that  all 
bishops,  archbishops,  primates,  and  others  set  over  the  conduct 
of  the  churches,  shall  be  held  and  obliged  thevi selves  to  preach 
the  holy  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ."  Nothing  could  be  better,  but 
never  was  a  decree  worse  observed.  How  many  bishops  are 
there  that  preach  ?  The  decree  adds,  it  is  true,  "  unless  they 
shall  be  legitimately  prevented."  Judging  by  the  actual  state 
of  matters,  it  would  seem  that  it  is  the  episcopate  itself  that  is 
considered  as  the  legitimate  hindrance.  But  after  this  solemn 
declaration  that  preaching  is  the  principal  fimctimt  of  bishops, 
there  ought  at  least  to  have  been  candour  enough  not  to  twit 
*  Et  bcc  est  prfficipuum  episcoporuni  nninn>j. 


118  HISTORY    OF  THE   COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  II. 

Protestantism  with  making  preaching  the  main  function  of  its 
ministers. 

During  these  discussions,  Paul  III.  had  repeated  his  first  orders. 
He  no  longer  asked,  he  insisted  that  the  council  should  proceed 
to  doctrines,  beginning  with  that  of  original  sin.  This  had 
therefore  to  be  done,  but  the  prelates  of  the  emperor's  party  did 
not  even  try  to  dissimulate  any  longer  their  desire  to  put  off  to 
the  last  possible  moment,  the  decrees  that  were  to  mark  out  the 
Protestants,  and  to  condemn  them.  The  farther  the  council 
advanced,  the  more  clearly  might  the  political  question  be  seen 
occupying  the  first  rank.  Had  it  ever  ceased,  could  it  ever 
cease  to  be  there  ?  All  that  can  be  said  is,  that  it  was  more  or 
less  apparent  there,  more  or  less  veiled,  according  to  circun> 
stances. 

The  legates  who,  on  the  contrary,  wanted  nothing  better  than 
to  have  the  party  fully  committed,  in  order  that  there  might  be 
no  longer  any  possible  agreement  betwixt  the  emperor  and  the 
Protestants,  had  prepared  a  list  of  nine  propositions  for  condem- 
nation. They  had  taken  care  to  include  in  this  list  those  only 
in  condemning  which  they  could  coinit  on  perfect  unanimity;  a 
few  hours  of  deliberation,  and  all  would  be  done.  Upon  this  the 
imperialists  changed  their  tactics.  They  craved  that  the  Church's 
doctrine  on  the  subject  in  question,  should  first  be  established  ; 
they  were  sensible  that  the  discussion  once  begun,  the  council 
would  not  be  long  in  a  condition  to  draw  up  decrees.  The 
legates  felt  this  also,  but  how  refuse  ? 

Four  questions,  consequently,  were  set  down  for  debate  : 

I.  What  was  the  nature  of  Adam's  sin  ? 

n.  In  what  sense  are  we  to  say  that  it  passes  to  his  pos- 
terity ? 

III.  How  is  it  transmitted  ? 

IV.  How  is  it  effaced  ? 

Before  proceeding  farther,  we  would  remind  the  reader  that 
our  plan  could  not  admit  of  the  theological  discussion  of  any  of 
the  questions  mooted  in  the  council.  Wherever  we  shall  have 
merely  to  allow  Scripture,  common  sense,  and  history  to  speak, 
we  shall  do  so,  as  we  have  done  already  ;  wherever  we  should 
have  to  enter  into  the  labyrinth  of  human  opinions,  and  to  choose 
between  ideas  equally  probable,  or  equally  improbable,  we  shall 
be  silent. 

Now,  nothing  can  be  more  natural  than  to  try  to  ascertain, 
according  to  the  Bible,  if  we  must  believe  in  original  sin,  that  is 
to  say,  in  a  certain  transmission  of  Adam's  sin  ;  but  this  fact 
once  admitted,  we  apprehend  there  would  be  rashness,  pride, 
folly,  in  getting  ourselves  to  analyze  and  to  explain  it.     The 


Chap.  II.  1546.  THE   QUESTION    OF   ORIGINAL   SIN.  119 

Christian  who  is  most  disposed  to  sec  in  it  a  fundamental  doc- 
trine, is  compelled  to  avow,  if  he  reasons,  that  it  is  one  of  the 
points  on  which  God  has  evidently  not  seen  fit  that  our  view 
should  penetrate  into  the  full  depth  of  its  bearings. 

The  divines,  accordingly,  were  far  from  being  agreed  even  on 
the  first  question.  More  clear,  it  would  seem,  than  the  other 
three,  it  is  in  reality  perhaps  the  most  obscure.  What,  in  fact, 
Avas  the  sin  of  the  first  man  ?  Had  it  been  related  to  us  as  an 
ordinary  sin,  we  could  have  figured  to  ourselves  well  enough  its 
nature  and  its  seriousness.  It  was,  we  should  have  said,  curi- 
osity, gluttony,  pride  ;  and  as  these  vices  are  not  rare,  we  should 
find  no  great  difficulty  in  determining  to  Avhat  degree  they  were 
to  be  blamed  in  the  case.  But  when  we  behold  them  followed 
by  terrible  consequences,  permanent  in  duration,  and  quite  dis- 
proportioned,  in  the  eye  of  mere  man,  to  the  gravity  of  the  crime 
— here  there  was  evidently  a  relation  which  escapes  us,  and 
which  God  only  knows. 

On  the  second  and  third  questions,  the  divines  did  not  even 
dispute,  so  sensible  were  they  of  the  impossibility  of  coming  to  a 
common  understanding.  Unanimous  in  affirming  that  Adam's 
sin  has  had  certain  consequences  for  his  posterity,  how  could  they 
expect  to  be  so  when  they  came  to  state  precisely  in  what  these 
consequences  consist  ?  But  they  were  not  circumspect  enough 
to  decline  any  such  precise  statement.  Each  had  his  own  system  ; 
one  followed  Augustine,  another  Thomas  Aquinas,  a  third  Duns 
Scotus  ;  but  they  confined  themselves  each  to  saying  what  his 
own  view  was,  leaving  to  the  bishops  the  task  of  selection  and 
arrangement. 

None  of  the  questions,  even  to  the  fourth,  on  being  narrowly 
examined,  failed  to  become  a  source  of  embarrassment.  The 
members  were  agreed  in  saying,  that  original  sin  is  efiaced  by 
baptism  ;  but  the  door  once  opened  to  the  questions  tchij  and 
lioiv,  a  cloud  of  obscurities  gathered  round  the  subject.  From 
the  moment  you  give  baptism  any  other  bearing  but  that  of  an 
external  sign,  announcing  the  fact  of  entrance  into  the  Church, 
and  figuring  by  water  the  purification  of  the  soul — where  would 
you  stop  ?  You  are  then  caught,  in  particular,  in  the  question 
as  to  infants  dying  without  baptism,  and,  in  spite  of  your  reason 
and  your  sensibility,  which  revolt  from  the  idea,  it  is  impossible 
for  you  not  to  declare  them  shut  out  from  salvation. 

The  council  ventured,  however,  not  to  confine  themselves 
altogether  to  St.  Augustine's  opinion,  who,  with  his  merciless 
logic,  makes  those  infants  to  be  so  many  lost  souls  ;  nay.  Doctor 
Ambrose  Catharini  went  so  far  as  to  beg  that  that  opinion 
might   be    declared   heretical.      Condemn    Augustine  I      They 


120  HISTORY   OF   THE   COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  H. 

recoiled  from  that  ;^  but  these  infants  once  out  of  hell,  they  knew 
not  where  to  put  them.  Some  Franciscan  divines  ventured  to 
say  that  their  dwelling  was  not  under  the  earth,  like  that  of  the 
lost,  but  somewhere  on  the  earth,  in  the  air,  or  in  the  sun ; 
some  placed  them  in  a  sort  of  terrestrial  paradise,  where  they 
employed  themselves  in  reasoning  on  the  marvels  of  nature, 
but  without  thinking,  or  having  the  power  to  think,  of  God. 
Catharini,  who  had  constituted  himself  their  patron,  found  even 
this  last  opinion  too  hard :  the  angels  and  saints,  he  affirmed, 
are  constantly  visiting  them.  The  Jacobin  divines  chose  a 
middle  course,  which,  without  having  been  decreed,  has  become 
the  ordinary  doctrine  of  the  Church,  According  to  them,  in- 
fants dying  without  baptism  have  their  abode  between  paradise 
and  hell ;  they  are  neither  happy  nor  miserable,  neither  joyous 
nor  sad.  In  short,  one  would  have  said,  that  the  council  were 
called,  not  to  say  where  these  infants  were,  but  to  determine 
where  they  themselves  should  put  them  ;  and  this  was  what  was 
done.  What  folly  I  And  but  for  the  necessity  of  keeping  one's 
gravity  in  all  that  is  connected,  even  remotely  and  by  ties  that 
are  absurd,  with  the  grand  ideas  of  religion,  who  could  seriously 
relate  such  monstrous  extravagances  ?  All  well  to  explain  and 
develop  doctrines,  though  one  ought  to  know  where  to  stop  even 
there.  But  to  wish  to  guess  out,  fix,  and  set  up  as  doctrines, 
facts  of  which  revelation  does  not  inform  us,  and  which  are 
utterly  beyond  every  kind  of  observation  and  verification — this 
is  a  freak  which  we  should  consider  as  incredible  were  it  less 
established  by  evidence,  and  as  what  might  be  presented  in  a 
history  of  paganism,  as  an  unheard-of  instance  of  the  temerity 
of  the  learned,  the  credulity  of  their  disciples,  and  the  senseless- 
ness of  the  people.  If  this  reproach  is  not  precisely  applicable 
to  the  present  decree,  seeing  that  explanation  on  the  state  of 
infants  dying  without  baptism  was  abandoned,  how  much  was 
there  not  attempted  afterwards  on  points  of  which  we  have  no- 
thing more  taught  us  in  the  Bible,  and  which  are  equally 
incapable  of  being  elucidated  without  it !  Besides,  on  this  very 
point,  why,  seeing  the  council  decreed  nothing,  are  details  given 
in  the  catechisms,  which  it  did  not  give  ? 

For  the  rest,  while  withal  it  teaches,  according  to  the  council, 
that  there  is  "no  other  means  but  baptism  for  procuring  the 
salvation  of  infants,"  the  famous  Catechisinus  Roma?ius,  com- 

^  The  dogmatical  authority  of  the  fathers  was,  however,  still  far 
enough  from  what  it  has  been  since.  Cardinal  Cajetan  had  written  at 
the  commencement  of  the  century,  that  a  di%'ine  might  sometimes  inter- 
pret Scripture  without  following  the  torrent  of  the  Fathers  {contra 
torrentem  Patriim).  What  ultra-montanist  would  say  as  much  at  the 
present  day  ? 


Chap.  II.  1546.  NO   DECISION   AS   TO   ITS   NATURE.  }'ll 

monly  called  the  Catechism  of  the  Council  of  Trent, ^  adnnit.s  a 
fact  which  would  sutfice  for  the  subversion  of  that  doctrine,  if 
for  this  common  sense  were  not  already  all  that  is  required. 
That  fact  is,  that  in  the  primitive  Church,  Easterday  and  Whit- 
.«unday  were  the  only  ones  on  which  baptism  was  administered.^ 
Although  the  Catechism  adds,  "  saving  cases  of  necessity,"  how 
exceedingly  improbable  that  infants,  however  thriving,  would 
have  been  left  for  so  many  months  without  baptism,  had  it 
been  thought  that  their  salvation  might  thus  have  been  com- 
promised ? 

After  long  and  fruitless  conferences,  the  majority  returned  to 
its  first  opinion  ;  there  was  to  be  nothing  directly  taught  on 
original  sin,  but  only  the  simple  condemnation  of  a  certain  num- 
ber of  heretical  ideas  on  that  subject.  It  was  in  vain  that  sev- 
eral bishops,  and  still  more  the  divines,  remonstrated  that  a 
council  is  convened  for  the  instruction  of  the  faithful  as  well  as 
for  the  condemnation  of  error  ;  in  vain  did  some,  and  Jerome 
Seripandi,  the  general  of  the  Augustinians  in  particular,  give  it 
to  be  understood  that  here  this  would  be  a  confession  of  the  coun- 
cil's impotency.  The  bishops  felt  themselves  decidedly  incapa- 
ble of  drawing  up  articles  in  which  they  themselves  should  have 
sufficient  confidence  to  authorize  their  imposing  them  upon  the 
Church.  They  persisted  accordingly.  Shall  we  commend  them 
for  doing  so  ?  Their  reserve  ought  to  have  been  more  steadily 
maintained ;  and  as  we  shall  see  them  often  pronounce  without 
hesHation,  without  their  being,  at  bottom,  either  better  informed, 
or  more  sure,  we  cannot  give  them  much  credit  for  a  modesty 
so  transient,  when  preceded,  accompanied,  and  followed  by  so 
much  pride  and  audacity.  Then,  in  another  view,  how  recon- 
cile this  silence  with  the  council's  authority  and  divine  inspira- 
tion ?  If  it  has  recoiled  from  original  sin,  what  right  will  it 
have  to  impose  what  it  shall  decree  on  justification,  on  grace, 
on  twenty  other  subjects,  before  which  it  must  have  had  quite 
as  many  motives  to  fall  back  and  be  silent  ?  The  great  induce- 
ment, we  have  said,  was  that  the  members  felt  that  they  were 
not  of  one  mind  ;  and  on  the  questions  of  the  same  kind  which 
they  had  to  decide  afterwards,  they  were  a  little  better  agreed. 
Such  is  the  secret  of  the  matter  ;  but  then  there  starts  up  a  new 

*  We  shall  often  have  occasion  to  quote  it.  Published  under  the  ex- 
press order  of  the  council  (session  xxiv.),  based  on  the  council's  decrees, 
approved  b}^  Pius  V.  in  1570,  and  by  Gregory  XIII.  in  1583,  this  book 
has  been  placed,  in  the  Church  of  Rome,  almost  in  the  same  line  with 
the  decrees  of  councils,  and  is,  in  fact,  the  basis  of  religious  instruction 
throughout  the  whole  Roman  Catholic  world. 

^  Quibus  tantura  diebus,  nisi  necessitas  aliter  facere  eo-egisset,  in 
veteris  ecclesise  more  positum  fuit  ut  baptismus  administraretur. 

F 


122  HISTORY    OF   THE    COUNCIL   OF    TRENT.  Book  II. 

objection.  This  agreement  which,  in  other  cases,  has  given  you 
the  courage  to  pronounce  a  decision,  was,  you  say,  a  token  of 
the  divine  assistance ;  God  could  not  permit  your  being  unani- 
mous in  decreeing  an  error.  Be  it  so.  But  then,  to  what  a 
strange  part  you  condemn  the  Holy  Spirit  I  Here  we  have  two 
parallel  questions,  original  sin,  on  which  you  have  said  nothing, 
and  grace,  on  which  you  are  about  to  indite  (for  this  was  what 
was  done)  sixteen  chapters.  On  the  latter  subject,  accordingly, 
the  aid  of  the  Holy  Spirit  was  full  and  entire  ;  on  the  former, 
nothing  or  next  to  nothing.  What  caprice  I  And  how  strange 
should  we  deem  the  conduct  of  a  protector  to  be,  Avho  should 
sometimes  succour,  sometimes  abandon,  sometimes  maintain  una- 
nimity, sometimes  leave  to  stray  in  all  directions  those  who, 
he  knows,  cannot  dispense  with  him,  and  are  nothing  without 
him  I  "  To  insist,"  says  Father  Biner,  "  that  so  numerous  an 
assembly  should  present  no  example  of  dissidence,  would  be  to 
go  out  of  the  world,  and  to  have  a  mind  to  look  on  at  a  meeting 
of  a  council  held  by  the  angels."  "We,  too,  think  it  quite  a  thing 
to  be  expected  that  there  should  have  been  questions  on  Avhich 
members  were  not  agreed ;  but  the  farther  we  shall  conceive 
the  assembly  to  have  been  from  resembling  a  council  of  angels, 
the  more  reason  shall  we  have  for  thinking  it  rash  to  have  pre- 
tended to  pronounce  infallibly  on  things  of  which  the  angels 
themselves,  say  the  Scriptures,  do  not  penetrate  the  depths. 

The  council,  therefore,  confined  itself  to  the  forming  of  five 
decrees  with  accompanying  anathemas.  The  first  was  directed 
against  those  who  deny  that  Adam  lost  original  righteousness ; 
the  second,  against  those  who  deny  the  transmission  of  original 
sin  ;  the  third,  against  those  who  think  that  baptism  does  not 
entirely  obliterate  it ;  the  fifth,  against  those  who  say  that  after 
baptism,  concupiscence  is  still  sin.^ 

On  the  occasion  of  the  second  of  these  decrees,  a  quarrel,  al- 
ready of  four  centuries'  standing,  burst  out  afresh  between  the 
Cordeliers  and  the  Jacobins,  a  quarrel  which  the  council  was 
not  to  compose,  and  which  lasts  to  this  day.^ 

Was  the  Virgin  Mary  comprehended  in  the  decree  which  de- 

'  In  theolog}-  the  collective  desires  of  revolt  existing  in  man  (the  re- 
volt of  the  flesh  against  the  spirit,  of  the  spirit  against  God,  <fec.)  are 
called  concupiscence.  Those  desires,  viewed  as  the  consequences  of  orig- 
inal sin,  cease  through  baptism  to  be  sins:  they  become  criminal  only 
when  we  yield  to  them ;  whilst  in  the  man  who  is  not  baptized,  they 
are  culpable  by  the  simple  fact  of  their  existence. — Such  is  the  Roman 
doctrine,  and  it  is  in  that  sense  that  the  council  condemns  those  who 
shall  attack  the  efficacy  of  baptism,  while  they  maintain  that  it  does 
not  prevent  concupiscence  from  being  sin. 

'  [Settled  by  Papal  decree,  without  a  council,  1854. — Ed.] 


Chap.  H.  154C.  THE   IMMACULATE   CONCEPTION.  123 

clarcs  all  llie  children  of  Adam  subject  to  original  sin  ?     tSucli 
Avas  the  question. 

An  idle  question,  if  ever  there  was  one.  Idle  in  itself:  as 
long  as  the  Bible  says  nothing  about  it,  what  means  shall  we 
iind  for  resolving  it  ?  Idle  in  its  results  :  of  what  moment  to  us 
whetlier  the  Virgin  Mary  was  conceived  under  the  empire  of 
original  sin  or  not  ?  Wherein  can  this  circumstance  influence 
in  the  least  our  laith  or  our  works  ?  And  although  the  immac- 
ulate conception  of  the  Virgin  were  a  fact  capable  of  being  es- 
tablished, shall  we  hold  that  Christianity  was  incomplete  until 
people  began  to  speak  about  it  ? 

Until  the  twellth  century,  in  fact,  we  find  nothing  formal  on 
this  strange  problem.  Of  this  we  have  a  proof  in  the  quotations 
accumulated  by  Pallavicini,  at  this  part  of  his  work,  for  the 
purpose  of  demonstrating  the  antiquity  of  the  acts  of  homage 
rendered  to  the  sanctity  of  the  Virgin.  The  stronger  these  dec- 
larations, the  more  inconceivable  would  it  be  that  the  exemption 
from  the  stain  of  original  sin  should  not  be  mentioned  in  them, 
if  it  were  believed  ever  so  little  or  even  so  much  as  dreamt  of 
It  was  towards  1130,  at  the  very  height  of  the  kind  of  fever 
that  led  to  a  continual  addition  of  new  honours  to  the  worship 
of  Mary,  and  of  new  marvels  to  her  history,  that  the  canons  of 
Lyons  set  themselves  all  at  once  to  preach  this  new  doctrine  ; 
they  spoke  even  of  instituting  a  festival  in  honour  of  it.  St.  Ber- 
nard opposed  this.  He  wrote  them  a  severe  letter,  which  it  has 
been  attempted,  but  in  vain,^  to  transform  into  a  simple  repri- 
mand, for  their  not  having  begun  by  referring  the  matter  to  the 
pope.  The  man  who  called  that  idea  a  presiimptiious  novelty, 
mother  of  temerity,  sister  of  super stitimt,  daughter  of  feJde- 
ness,  could  not  have  intended  to  attack  it  merely  in  point  of 
form.  It  did  not  arise,  however,  from  his  being  habitually  chary 
of  his  expressions  of  homage  to  the  Virgin,  for  he  calls  her  else- 
where, in  language  more  picturesque  than  noble,  "  the  neck  of 
the  Church,  the  channel  through  which  all  good  influences  and 
divine  graces  pass  from  the  head  to  the  members  ;"  but  as  he, 
after  all,  was  a  superior  man,  he  resisted  a  little  better  than  the 
rest  of  his  age,  the  passion  for  ransacking  the  worlds  of  fancy  for 
the  purpose  of  finding  there  what  was  futile  or  absurd.  Eighty 
years  after  we  see  John  Scot  taking  up  the  question,  and  on 
reading  him,  find  it  had  made  some  progress.  The  idea  of  the 
immaculate  conception  had  charms  for  him  that  led  him  to 
maintain  it,  but  only  as  a  possibility.  Direct  proofs  ol"  it  he  nei- 
ther gives  nor  seeks,  and  seems  to  think  that  they  are  never  to 

^  Pallavicini,  1.  vii. — Cardinal  de  Bonald,  mandcmcnt  of  21st  Novem- 
ber, 1843. 


124  HISTORY    OF   THE    COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  H. 

be  had.     In  his  latest  writings  he  decidedly  leans  to  its  being 
admitted,  but  always  as  a  matter  of  sentiment.     He  feels  re- 
pugnant at  the  thought  that  the  Virgin  ever  could  have  been 
for  a  single  moment  under  condemnation.      Christ  redeemed  all 
mankind  ;    nevertheless  he  could  not  have  been  a  perfect  re- 
deemer had  there  not  been  one  being,  at  least,  whom  he  should 
save,  not  only  from  the  consequences  of  origmal  sin,  but  from 
orio-inal  sin  itself.     And  who  could  this  being  have  been  but  his 
own  mother  ?     Admirable  reasonings  these,  on  which  a  man 
of  science  could  not   admit   the    existence   of  a   single   plant, 
of  an  insect,  of  an  atom — yet  with  which  people  have  so  often 
been  content  in  establishing  the  sublimest  mysteries  I     As  the 
disciples  of  John  Scot,  the  Cordeliers  went  much  farther  than 
he  did,  and  thus  the  immaculate  conception  was  openly  main- 
tained as  a  dogma,  but  was  keenly  attacked,  at  the  same  time, 
by  their  enemies,  the  Jacobins.     As  the  Church  did  not  pro- 
nounce  a  decision,  the  field  remained  open,   and  hence   arose 
wranglings,  writmgs  p;-o  and  con,  and  deadly  animosities  with- 
out end.     Another  subject  began  likewise  to  be  discussed  with 
an  ever  increasing  vivacity,  that  of  the  virginity  of  Mary,  held 
to  have  been  perpetual,  according  to  some,  ending,  according  to 
others,  with  the  birth  of  Jesus  Christ,  or  with  that  of  other  chil- 
dren  born    after  him.      The   former   of  these  opinions   gained 
ground  every  day.     There  were  purposes  to  be  served  by  it,  and 
this  was  enough  to  secure  its  being  believed  to  rest  on  a  sound 
foundation.     In  vain  do  the  gospels  shew  us  the  Virgin  married 
to  Joseph,  living  long  years  with  him,  altogether  a  stranger  to 
the  mystical  notions  imputed  to  her,  and  which,  besides,  would 
have  been  in  positive  contradiction  to  Jewish  ideas,  seeing  that 
with  them  virginity  in  marriage  was  a  kind  of  opprobrium  ;  in 
vain  do  these  same  books  present  her  to  us  as  several  times  ac- 
companied by  those  whom  they  call  the  brethren  of  Jesus  :   all 
these  difficulties  have  been  overleapt.    Mary  is  not  only  a  "Vir- 
gin," as  saith  the  Scripture  in  its  charming  introduction  to  the 
wonders  of  Bethlehem,  she  is  "  the  Virgin,"  the  type  of  virgin- 
ity, and  of  all  the  perfections  of  which  that  state,  according  to 
Rome,  is  the  source.     The  council  has  not  said  this,  but  the 
Church  of  Rome  teaches  it ;   the  Roman  catechism  enlarges 
upon  it  with  explanations  which  we  would  not  dare  to  quote, 
even  in  Latin.     Nevertheless,  were  the  reasons  adduced  in  sup- 
port of  it  as  strong  as  they  are  feeble,  not  to  say  ridiculous  ; 
were  the  '' brethroi''  of  Jesus  not  his  brethren,  as  has  been 
alleged,  but  his  cousins ;   it  must  ever  be  admitted,  that  the 
evangelists  attached  very  little  importance  to  the  doctrine,  see- 
ing that  they  have  given,  without  a  single  hint  to  the  contrary, 


Chap.  II.  1546.  A   MIDDLE    COURSE   ADOPTED.  126 

SO  many  details  -which  could  not  hut  render  it  improbahlc,  and 
dispel  the  very  idea  of  it. 

Meanwhile,  on  the  question  of  the  Immaculate  Conception 
the  popes  have  fluctuated  like  the  doctors.  Some  would  declare 
themselves  for,  and  others  against  it,  but  always  as  divines,  not 
as  popes  ;  in  short,  opinions  have  been  too  much  divided  for 
any  of  them  to  venture  upon  an  ofhcial  decision.  From  time  to 
time  some  steps  have  been  made  in  favor  of  or  against  it.  John 
XXII.,  from  hatred  of  the  Cordeliers,^  seemed  for  a  moment  pre- 
pared to  condemn  their  doctrine;  Sixtus  IV.,  a  Cordelier  him- 
self, openly  favored  them.  In  147G  he  forbade  their  being  ac- 
cused of  heresy,  and  sanctioned  the  festival  first  conceived  at 
Lyons.  The  fact,  however,  still  remained  undecided,  Sixtus  IV. 
not  affirming,  but  only  forbidding  the  condemnation  of  those  who 
did  affirm  it. 

Such  then,  in  1546,  was  the  state  of  the  question.  If  not  yet 
sufficiently  advanced  for  the  one  party  to  venture  on  deciding  it 
in  the  way  prepared  by  Sixtus  IV.,  it  was  too  much  so  for  the 
Jacobins  to  attempt  having  it  decided  in  the  other.  They  con- 
fined themselves,  therefore,  to  insisting  that  no  exception  to  the 
law  of  original  sin  should  be  mentioned.*  More  bold,  because 
they  felt  themselves  more  popular,  the  Cordeliers  called  for  the 
express  exception  of  the  Virgin.  The  legates,  although  divided 
on  the  question  at  bottom,"  were  agreed  as  to  the  necessity  of 
saying  nothing  about  it ;  nevertheless,  anxious  to  screen  them- 
selves from  responsibility,  they  referred  the  matter  to  the  pope, 
and,  at  his  suggestion,  a  middle  course  w^as  again  adopted. 
The  decree  was  left  as  it  stood,  only  it  was  added,  that  the 
question  remained  intact ;  that  the  Virgin  was  neither  com- 
prised nor  excepted,  that  the  bull  of  Sixtus  IV.,  in  fine,  should 
rule  the  case. 

Has  that  rule  been  kept  ?  The  Immaculate  Conception  had 
been  voted  at  Basle,^  and  that,  no  doubt,  was  one  of  the  reasons 
that  prevented  its  being  voted  at  Trent.  Here,  then,  there  was 
a  step  backwards.  But  time  has  advanced.  The  idea  has  made 
progress ;  it  only  had  to  be  left  to  itself  in  order  to  its  regaining, 
and  more  than  regaining,  all  that  it  had  lost.  At  the  present 
day  matters  stand  thus.  There  aie  no  positive  decrees  ;  but 
every  bishop  that  asks  leave  to  establish  the  w^orship  of  the  Im- 
maculate Conception  in  his  diocese,  has  this  granted  to  him  by 

^  Tliey  had  supported  the  Emperor  Lewis  of  Bavaria,  whom  he  had 
excommunicated.  On  such  threads  hung  tlie  fate  of  the  Immaculate 
Conception ! 

^  Del  Monte  was  for,  Cervini  against,  and  Pole  wavered, 

^  Session  xxxiv. 


126  HISTORY   OF  THE    COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  II. 

the  pope,  and  hence  it  has  now  become  almost  universal.  Let 
but  some  years  more  elapse  and  nothing  will  prevent  the  fact 
from  taking  its  place  definitively  among  the  articles  of  faith. ^ 

Some  years  hence,  then,  ^ye  may  expect  it  to  be  pronounced 
heresy  to  deny  what  as  yet  one  may  safely  deny  or  believe. 
The  history  of  this  point,  were  it  to  remain  for  ever  undecided,  is 
that  of  many  others.  Is  this  not,  in  fact,  the  course  that  all  the 
Roman  dogmas  have  run  ?  An  idea  starts  up.  Some  defend, 
others  attack  it.  It  fluctuates  for  two  or  three  centuries,  some- 
times for  five  or  six,  sometimes  for  more,  in  the  midst  of  desires, 
of  fears,  of  interests,  which  invite  or  repel  it ;  next,  some  day, 
when  the  Church  seems  to  be  sufficiently  impregnated  with  it  to 
secure  the  step  from  being  assailed  with  too  much  violence  of 
protest,  behold,  it  is  made  an  article  of  faith.  And  then  at  least 
people  know^  how  they  stand  ;  but  until  then  what  an  indescrib- 
able medley  of  certainty  and  uncertainty,  of  bondage  and  of 
freedom  I  Was  the  Virgin  exempt  from  original  sin  ?  You  are 
invited  to  believe  that  she  was,  but  without  your  being  assured 
that  it  is  true.  Perhaps  it  will  be  affirmed  to-morrow,  and  then 
anathema  to  him  who  shall  deny  it ;  possibly  it  will  never  be 
affirmed  ;  perhaps,  for  this  is  no  more  impossible  than  the  rest, 
the  contrary  will  one  day  be  affirmed.  Here  then  we  have  an 
infallible  Church  which  shall  have  remained  for  a  thousand 
years,  perhaps  two  thousand,  before  regulating — what  ?  why  a 
pure  matter  of  fact  ;  a  question,  consequently,  on  which  time 
brings  no  new  light.  If  one  can  decide  it  to-morrow,  there 
should  be  the  power  of  deciding  it  to-day,  there  should  have 
been  power  to  do  so  in  the  sixteenth  century ;  and  if  there  was 
no  power  of  deciding  it  in  the  sixteenth  century,  there  ought  to 
be  none  to-day  or  to-morrow.  The  present  pope  goes  farther 
than  had  ever  been  done  before  ;  why  this  advance  ?  have  any 
new  proofs  been  discovered  ?  No.  There  are  not  even  any  old 
ones,  for  had  there  been  any  the  question  would  have  been  de- 
cided long  ago.  Has  the  pope  received  any  revelation  more  than 
his  predecessors  ?  On  a  matter  of  positive  fact  there  can  be  no 
half-revelation ;  it  must  be  ay  or  no.  Wherefore,  then,  we 
repeat,  wherefore  this  half-affirmation  ?  Wherefore  these  exhor- 
tations to  believe  what  neither  the  Church  nor  the  pope  can  yet 
affirm  to  be  true  ? 

The  fifth  session  accordingly  took  place  on  the  17th  of  June. 
Pallavicini,  as  usual,  after  having  peevishly  noticed  some  of  Fa- 
ther Paul's  mistakes,  says  more  even  than  he  does  on  the  divis- 
ions in  the  assembly.  The  following  passage  is  extracted  from 
him  word  for  word,  it  is  only  abridged  in  some  places : 

1  [See  Note  2,  page  122.] 


Chaf.  II    1540.  EVIDENCES  OF  DISSENSION.  127 

"  TIio  decree  on  original  sin  was  approved,  notwithslaiiding 
the  opposition  of  Cardinal  Pacheco  and  those  who  in  the  con- 
gregation had  desired  that  the  exception  with  respect  to  the 
Virgin,  should  be  expressed  in  more  favourable  terms.  Some  of 
these  craved  that  at  least  silence  should  be  imposed  on  the 
partisans  of  the  contrary  opinion,  either  generally  or  only  in 
public  preaching.  There  were  some  who  advised  that  of  the 
two  opinions,  that  in  favour  of  the  Virgin's  exception  was  simply 
pious  ;  others  required  that  it  should  be  declared  the  more  pi- 
ous of  the  two.  The  Archbishop  of  Sassari  alleged  that — 
this  decree  did  not  please  the  Bishop  of  Cava  I  Not  the  less 
did  protests  continue  to  be  made  against  the  title  of  the  coun- 
cil, «Scc.''^ 

And  when  we  reflect  that  all  this  transpired  in  full  session, 
in  an  assembly  of  at  most  sixty  persons,  in  view  of  a  numerous 
pubhc,  or,  more  properly,  before  the  eyes  of  all  Europe,  after 
so  many  private  sittings,  where  the  members  might  have  come 
to  a  common  understanding,  after  so  many  exhortations  on  the 
necessity  of  being  united,  and  on  the  immense  inconvenience  of 
their  not  being  so — one  may  judge  as  to  what  that  general  agree- 
ment was  at  bottom,  in  virtue  of  which  they  proceeded  to  fix  the 
faith  of  the  Church,  and  to  anathematize  all  that  was  not  the 
faith  so  constituted. 

'  Pallavicini,  book  vii.  ch.  xiii. 


CHAPTEE   III. 

(1546.)  •■ 

SESSION  VI.      TROUBLES  IX  THE   COUNCIL.      EPISCOPAL  RESIDENCE. 
DECREES  ON  GRACE  AND  JUSTIFICATION. 

The  ambassadors — Peter  Danes — Holy  War — Jubilee — ^Miscalculations 
— Alarms  on  the  side  of  Trent — Projects  for  transferring  the  council 
to  another  place — Victories  of  Charles  Y. — Fresh  altercations  on  the 
choice  of  subjects — Residence — Historical  view — ^The  legates  severe 
at  the  expense  of  the  bishops,  and  the  bishops  severe  at  the  expense 
of  the  pope — Grace — Two  extremes — "What  is  in  truth  the  Romish 
doctrine — "Warm  disputes — What  we  are  to  believe  respecting  grace 
— Draft  of  the  decree — Herculean  task — Inconsistency  and  audacity 
— Quarrel  betwixt  Soto  and  Catherini — Xo  solution — Benefices — 
Historical  view — Pious  donations — Origin  of  the  quarrel  about  the 
Divine  right — Efforts  to  keep  the  pope  out  of  it — Decree  on  residence 
— Abuses  without  end — Samson's  courage — Sixth  Session — To  be 
still  and  adore. 

The  ambassadors  of  Francis  I.  arrived  a  few  days  after. 
These  w^ere  Claude  d'Urfe,  Jacques  de  Ligneris,  and  Pierre 
Danes,  afterwards  Bishop  of  Lavaur.  What  did  they  come  to 
do  ?  The  part  properly  belonging  to  the  ambassadors  who  at- 
tended the  council  was  never  well  defined.  We  behold  them 
there  doing  a  little  of  everything,  from  la  haute  iwliiique,  Avhich 
never  ought  to  have  found  access  there,  to  the  most  insignificant 
doctrinal  squabbles,  in  which  they  protested  they  had  no  call 
to  intervene.  We  see  them,  according  as  their  masters  w^ere  on 
good  or  bad  terms  with  the  Court  of  Rome,  repressing  or  en- 
couraging the  opposition  made  by  their  bishops.  That  same 
ambassador  from  Spain  who,  a  month  before,  hatl  asked  leave 
to  be  present  at  the  congregations,  that  he  might,  as  he  said, 
restrain  the  bishops  of  fliat  country,  was  the  first,  afterwards,  to 
excite  them  against  the  pope.  We  cannot  blame,  absolutely, 
the  presence  of  a  diplomatic  body  at  Trent.  It  was  one  of  the 
necessities  of  the  moment.  We  Avill  not  accuse,  either  the  pope 
for  having  asked  ambassadors,  or  the  secular  sovereigns  for  hav- 
ing sent  them,  but  if  they  enhanced  the  external  lustre  of  the 
council,  still  more  did  they  contribute  to  deprive  it  of  the  very 
appearance  of  what  it  behoved  to  have  been,  in  order  to  its 
commanding  respect  and  confidence. 


Chap.  III.  1516.      PAUL  III.   LENDS  TROOPS  TO   CHARLES   V.  129 

The  Fieiicli  ambassadors  were  adniittcd  1o  the  general  coiipre- 
gatioii  on  tlic  fcith  oi"  July,  and  there  expressed  themselves,  by  the 
mouth  of  Danes,  with  a  boldness  and  independence  that  were 
but  thinly  veiled  by  courtesy  in  point  of  forms.  In  reminding 
his  audience  that  his  royal  master  had  resisted  the  example  and 
sohcitations  of  Henry  YIIL,  he  almost  hinted  that  for  this  the 
council  and  the  pope  ought  to  be  extremely  grateful ;  then,  go- 
ing back  to  the  early  times  of  the  French  monarchy,  he  drew  a 
pompous  picture  of  the  services  it  had  rendered  to  the  Church, 
and  particularly  to  the  popes.  He  quoted  the  humble  thanks 
with  which  a  pope  had  repaid  the  succour  and  the  ho.=:pitality 
of  the  Kings  of  France  ;  he  even  advanced  a  fact,  which  has  not 
been  proved,  namely,  that  Adrian  I.  had  recognised  in  Charle- 
magne the  right  not  only  of  confirming,  but  of  naming  the  pope  ; 
a  right  which  would  never  have  been  lost  but  ibr  the  renuncia- 
tion of  Louis  le  Debonnaire.  He  was  allowed  to  speak  on,  but 
the  pope's  friends  Avere  excniciated.  If  some  of  the  facts  which 
this  speech  comprised  were  inexact,  there  were  others  to  which 
there  could  be  no  reply  ;  and  all  these  recollections,  which  Rome 
might  have  despised  when  she  was  at  the  pinnacle  of  her  glory, 
formed  a  melancholy  addition  to  the  checks  which  this  century 
had  seen  her  receive. 

Meanwhile  the  Bishop  of  Trent  had  brought  to  a  success- 
ful termination  the  negotiations  begun  with  Cardinal  Farnese. 
Charles  Y.  had  accepted  the  offered  twelve  thousand  men,  and 
was  about  to  open  the  campaign.  By  a  secret  convention  the 
pope  engaged  to  excommunicate  the  King  of  France  should  he, 
directly  or  indirectly,  furnish  any  aid  to  the  Protestants  of  Ger- 
many. But  while  nothing  was  neglected  on  the  part  of  Paul  III. 
to  give  the  opening  hostilities  the  character  of  a  Jwly  Avar,  and 
while,  with  this  in  view,  he  went  so  far  as  to  permit  the  emperor 
to  appropriate  the  half  of  the  ecclesiastical  revenues  of  Spain,  the 
emperor  persisted,  at  least  in  Gemiany,  in  denying  that  religion 
had  anything  to  do  with  it,  as  respected  him.  Solely  intent  on 
retaining  on  his  own  side  those  Lutheran  princes  who  had  not 
yet  deserted  him,  he  would  say  that  he  attacked  the  others  only 
as  faithless  and  revolted  vassals.  Their  rebellion  ajrainst  the 
Church  and  the  pope  was  no  affair  of  his,  and  still  less  were  the 
council's  anathemas. 

Paul  III.  thought  to  shew  the  hand  of  a  master  in  publishing 
a  jubilee  ''for  the  success  of  the  Cliurch  and  the  emperor ^ 
He  thought  he  should  thus  compel  the  latter  to  avow  the 
alliance,  and  to  advertise  himself  as  the  champion  of  the  Church. 
This  too  was  in  vain.  Charles  was  not  the  man  to  put  himself 
in  an  inferior  position.     Like  the  pope,  and  in  general  like  all  the 


130  HISTORY    OF  THE   COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  II. 

popes,  all  obstacles  which  he  could  not  throw  down,  or  which, 
lor  the  moment,  it  was  not  convenient  for  him  to  throw  down, 
he  would  pass,  affecting  not  to  notice  them.  Eight  days  after 
the  celebration  of  the  jubilee,  he  quietly  put  the  Elector  of  Sax- 
ony, and  the  Landgrave  of  Hesse  to  the  ban  of  the  empire,  with- 
out altering  a  word  of  the  formularies  usually  employed  in  those 
cases.  He  reproached  them,  it  is  true,  among  other  misdeeds, 
with  laying  violent  hands  on  Church  property,  but  without  seem- 
ing to  be  aware  whether  this  had  been  done  systematically  and 
heretic  ally. 

The  pope's  situation  became  daily  more  and  more  painful. 
Not  only  did  the  undertaking  not  assume  the  character  he  had 
desired,  at  all  costs,  to  give  to  it,  but  his  efforts  caused  uneasiness 
and  discontent  in  most  of  the  Italian  princes.  Good  Roman 
Catholics,  but  extremely  tired  of  the  imperial  tutelage,  they  felt 
an  interest,  in  spite  of  themselves,  in  the  German  prmces  who 
dared  to  think  of  casting  it  off;  they  could  perceive  that  Charles 
V.  could  not  again  become  absolute  in  Germany  without  his  yoke 
becoming  more  hard  to  bear  in  Italy,  and  beheld  with  grief  the 
pope  supplying  him  with  the  means  for  being  so. 

Is  it  true,  as  Sarpi  will  have  it,  that  the  ruin  of  the  Protest- 
ants was  not  the  sole  object  of  the  wily  pontiff^  and  that  he  still 
hoped  to  find,  amid  the  engrossing  contingencies  of  war,  a  pretext 
for  ridding  himself,  in  an  honest  way,  of  the  council  ?  Although 
nothing  had  as  yet  been  done  for  which  he  had  any  positive 
ground  of  complaint,  and  although,  besides,  all  due  measures  had 
been  taken  to  enable  him  to  manage  the  threads  of  secret  influ- 
ence to  the  last,  it  was  with  an  ever  increasing  anguish  that  he 
felt  himself  watched  by  the  eye  of  that  hitherto  benevolent  rival, 
whose  sopited  rights  might  reawake  some  day,  under  the  slight- 
est breath  of  wind  wafted  from  Ratisbon  or  Spires.  Then,  too, 
although  the  ability  of  the  legates,  and  still  more,  the  feeling  of 
a  common  interest,  had  succeeded  hitherto  in  keeping  off  storms, 
more  than  one  black  cloud  had  appeared  on  the  horizon.  "  The 
council  is  not  free  I"  one  bishop  had  exclaimed.  "  The  coun- 
cil," cried  another,  pointing  to  the  legates,  "  is  composed  of 
only  three  members  I"  These  legates  had  been  openly  assailed 
a  hundred  times  ;  and  as  the  system  of  the  responsibility  of  min- 
isters was  not  yet  admitted,  either  in  the  laws  or  the  manners 
of  society,  their  master  felt  himself  really  and  truly  reached  by 
all  the  strokes  directed  apparently  only  against  them.  "  It 
must  not  be  imagined,"  they  wrote  to  him  in  confidence  at  the 
time  of  the  first  session,  "  that  the  bishops  here  are  such  as  we 
are  accustomed  to  see  at  Rome.  They  feel  their  importance ; 
and  they  desire  that  it  should  be  felt."     And,  in  fact,  although 


Chap.  HI.  1546.      INTRACTABLE    SPIRITS    IN  THE   COUNCIL.  181 

the  f^rcat  mass  of  the  Italians  were  devoted  to  a  degree  that 
nothiii"-  could  shake,  it  was  amongst  them  that  some  of  the 
most  disquieting  members  were  to  be  found.  To  such  as  were 
so  from  the  spirit  of  opposition,  or  from  asperity  of  character, 
were  joined  those  who  were  so  from  conscience  and  from  piety. 
The  most  dangerous  to  Rome  were  those  who  honestly  believed 
in  the  divine  authority  of  the  council ;  these  it  was  found  impo.s- 
sible  to  convince,  that  while  voting  against  reason  and  conscience 
alike,  still  they  were  the  oracles  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  Add  to  this 
the  prospect  of  so  many  difficult,  obscure,  and  in.soluble  questions, 
of  w^iich  they  already  had  many  a  specimen,  of  so  many  reforms 
that  M^ere  called  for,  and  promised,  yet  wdiich  there  was  no 
disposition  to  grant ;  and  one  can  very  easily  comprehend  that 
Paul  III.  was  burning  with  easfcrness  to  have  done  with  it. 

This,  at  least,  was  the  opinion  so  generally  entertained,  that 
nobody  felt  a  moment's  scruple  in  giving  a  corresponding  inter- 
pretation to  all  that  he  did,  and  said,  and  thought.  The  legates 
had  done  nothing  hitherto  that  had  not  been  done  in  concert 
with  him  ;  when  they  w^ere  heard  alleging  the  near  approach  of 
the  armies  as  a  reason  for  proposing  what  was  known  to  be  one 
of  his  most  cherished  wishes — the  translation  of  the  council  into 
his  own  states — who  could  doubt  that  they  did  so  by  orders  from 
him  ?  Pallavicini  positively  says  no,  and  his  reasons,  we  must 
admit,  are  good.  But  though  he  may  prove  tolerably  well  that 
the  legates  acted  at  their  own  instance,  he  proves  also,  uninten- 
tionally, that  nothing  but  dread  of  the  emperor  had  prevented 
Paul  ill.  from  announcing  this  to  be  his  wish.  Besides,  to  trans- 
late the  council,  would,  at  such  a  crisis,  have  been  tantamount 
to  dissolving  it ;  without  the  council,  the  pope  could  no  longer 
expect  that  the  war  which  was  about  to  commence  would  as- 
sume the  aspect  of  a  war  of  religion.  The  legates,  consequently, 
were  disavowed  and  censured  ;  but,  says  the  historian,  to  miti- 
gate the  bitterness  of  this  censure,  word  was  sent  them  that  the 
pope  would  fain  believe  that  they  had  not  so  much  yielded  to  a 
shameful  panic,  as  to  their  excessive  eagerness  for  the  transla- 
tion ;  that  meanwhile,  the  more  honourable  it  was  to  desire  it, 
the  more  unseasonable  was  it  to  speak  of  it  at  that  moment. 
In  fact,  it  was  positively  said  that  the  emperor  had  spoken  of 
nothino-  short  of  tossing  into  the  Adige  whoever  should  dare  to 
propose  such  a  thing.  They  had  no  choice,  then,  but  to  pro- 
rogue, for  six  months,  the  session  appointed  for  the  29th  July. 

The  two  armies  remained  long  enough  in  presence  of  each 
other.  If  the  Protestants  had  not  had  two  chiefs,  an  untoward 
circumstance  at  all  times,  but  especially  in  war,  they  might  have 
acted  on  the  offensive  ;  their  united  forces  were  for  a  short  time 


132  HISTORY   OF   THE   COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  II. 

decidedly  superior  to  those  of  the  emperor.  Once,  indeed,  they 
made  an  advance  to  within  some  leagues  of  Trent.  The  em- 
peror had  engaged  to  see  to  the  safety  of  the  council ;  had  they 
pursued  their  advantage,  could  he  have  done  that  ?  The  council 
might  have  been  dispersed  or  captured,  before  he  could  come  up 
to  its  defence.  They  went  off;  having  no  desire,  it  was  said,  to 
do  the  pope  so  signal  a  service  as  to  rid  him  of  it. 

Notwithstanding  the  disagreement  of  the  elector  and  the  land- 
grave, their  affairs  were  at  first  tolerably  successful  Until  the 
end  of  October  success  was  about  equally  divided.  But,  then, 
the  imperialists  having  invaded  Saxony  and  Hesse,  those  two 
leaders  had  to  fly  to  the  defence  of  their  estates,  and  the  em- 
peror, almost  without  any  fighting,  found  himself  master  of  all 
Upper  Germany.  Meanwhile,  more  eager  to  beat  those  who 
still  held  out  against  him,  than  to  crush  those  whom  he  had 
beaten,  he  merely  levied  contributions  in  money  and  men  from 
the  latter.  Religion  was  left  free,  or  almost  free  ;  he  openly 
promised  the  electorate  of  Saxony  to  Duke  Maurice,  who  was 
devoted  to  Austria,  but  qiiite  as  much  a  Lutheran  withal  as  the 
prince  who  had  been  deprived  of  it. 

Then  it  was  that  the  pope  opened  his  eyes,  or,  to  speak  more 
correctly — for  he  was  not  the  man  to  have  had  them  shut — he 
ventured  at  last  to  let  the  world  know  that  they  were  open,  He 
recalled  his  troops.  The  emperor  had  the  bad  I'aith  to  complain 
of  this,  and  Paul,  the  weakness  to  excuse  himself  on  the  score  of 
its  being  impossible  for  him  to  support  any  longer  so  heavy  an 
expenditure. 

We  shall  ere  long  resume  the  march  of  events.  Meanwhile, 
let  us  return  to  what  was  passing  at  Trent. 

The  very  next  day  after  that  of  the  session  held  in  June,  wit- 
nessed the  revival  of  keen  disputes  and  busy  intrigues,  about  the 
selection  of  the  subjects  to  be  treated  in  the  session  that  was  to 
follow.  The  pope's  divines  said  that  after  having  spoken  of  the 
evil,  it  behoved  them  to  speak  next  of  the  remedy  ;  first,  origin- 
al sin,  then  grace.  This  was  sound  logic  ;  but  logic,  it  was  too 
well  known,  was  no  more  their  real  motive  in  proposing  this 
course,  than  the  good  of  the  Church  was  that  of  the  others  when 
they  persisted  in  rejecting  everything  but  decrees  of  internal  re- 
formation. 

In  order  to  propitiate  these  opponents,  the  legates  gave  out 
that  the  subject  of  grace,  committed  to  the  divines,  would  not  be 
long  of  being  in  a  fit  state  to  be  resumed  in  a  general  congrega- 
tion. While  waiting  for  that,  then,  they  might  take  up  some 
subjects  of  a  different  nature.  The  legates  suggested  that  of  resi- 
denno,  and  after  some  difficulties  it  was  accepted. 


Chap.  111.  ir)4r).     QL'ESTION    OF    EPISCOPAL   RESIDENCE.  188 

This  question  is  in  theory  one  of  the  simplest  that  can  be  im- 
agined. Ought  a  bishop  to  reside  within  the  bounds  of  his 
church  ?  Does  he  do  wrong  when  he  does  not  reside  there  ? 
Nobody  ever  rephed  in  the  negative ;  and  tlie  Christians  of  the 
first  ao"es  of  the  Church  would  have  been  scandalized  at  the 
mere  utterance  of  a  doubt  on  the  subject. 

In  point  of  fact,  it  is  otherwise.  For  a  course  of  at  least  eight 
centuries — for  it  is  not  threescore  years  since  the  reform  in  this 
respect  lias  been  actually  in  operation — the  history  of  the  Church 
has  been  saddened  by  the  complaints  of  the  faithful  on  account 
of  the  non-residence  of  their  first  pastors. 

It  were  impossible,  therefore,  for  us  to  attack  this  abuse  more 
warmly  than  has  been  done,  amid  the  applauding  shouts  of  the 
people  everywhere,  by  the  most  eminent  men  of  the  Roman 
Church.  Much  more  than  this,  to  all  that  we  might  say,  it 
may  be  objected  that  not  only  mere  authors,  but  councils,  and 
even  popes  themselves,  have  been  of  one  mind  in  holding  resi- 
dence to  be  the  law,  and  in  censuring  non-residents.  What 
then  have  we  to  do  here  ?  And  how  can  we  reproach  Koman 
Catholicism  for  what  it  has  never  ordained,  never  approved  ? 

If  these  decrees  absolve  it,  its  owai  acts  condemn  it.  How 
could  you  prove  that  an  abuse  which  you  find  prevalent,  for 
whole  centuries,  everywhere,  always,  universally  ;^  an  abuse 
which  has  stood  out  not  only  against  the  unanimous  reprobation 
of  the  faithful,  against  apparently  the  most  stringent  decrees, 
those  of  the  Council  of  Trent,  as  well  as  the  constitutions  of 
Innocent  III. — how  could  you  prove  that  it  was  not  profoundly 
inherent  in  the  Church's  tendencies,  and  that  it  may  at  this  day 
wash  its  hands  of  it,  by  merely  pointing  to  certain  law^s,  more  or 
less  severe,  intended  for  its  repression  ? 

And  can  it  be  said  that  the  regularity  observed  at  present  has 
been  the  effect  of  those  decrees  and  those  laws  ?  No.  This 
abuse,  like  so  many  others,  has  disappeared  only  in  consequence 
of  the  timely  aid  of  the  Church's  enemies.  But  for  the  Revolu- 
tion, we  see  no  reason  to  suppose  that  the  bishops  of  France 
would  not  have  been  at  this  day  what  they  were  in  Louis  the 
Fourteenth  and  Louis  the  Fifteenth's  times,  when  to  send  a  bishop 
to  his  diocese  was,  according  to  the  approved  phraseology,  to 
banish  him.  Without  the  diminution  of  the  revenues  of  the 
clergy,  without  the  active  superintendence  of  the  civil  author- 
ity and  of  the  press,  why  should  we  suppose  that  Roman  Cath- 

^  "  "What  a  sight  for  a  Christian  who  traverses  the  Christian  world ! 
All  the  pastors  have  abandoned  their  flocks;  all  the  flocks  are  in  the 
hands  of  mercenaries." — Memorial  to  Paul  III.  on  the  amelioration  of 
the  Church,  1538. 


134  HISTORY   OF   THE   COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  II. 

olicism  would  all  at  once  have  found  in  itself  that  power  of 
self-reform  which  it  did  not  possess  wdien  it  reigned  without 
control  ? 

As  for  the  effects  of  non-residence,  as  little  could  we  speak  of 
them  more  severely  than  the  Roman  Catholic  historians  have 
done,  or  than  the  Cardinal  del  Monte  did,  when  he  opened  the 
discussion.  He  went,  however,  a  little  too  far.  The  Reforma- 
tion itself,  according  to  him,  was  but  one  of  the  results  of  that 
same  abuse.  Had  all  the  bishops,  said  he,  been  at  their  posts, 
heresy  would  not  have  found  its  way  among  their  flocks.  This 
might  have  been  true  in  some  places  ;  but  we  see  that  the 
bishops  were  not  generally  wanting,  either  in  zeal  or  in  courage, 
from  the  moment  they  had  to  struggle  against  the  Reformation. 
It  was  because  it  is  not  enough  that  a  general  be  at  his  post ; 
he  must  also  have  troops  to  light  with.  What  could  scho- 
lasticism and  authority  do  against  those  soldiers  of  the  Bible 
who  went  right  to  the  heart  of  the  citadel  ?  The  cardinal  did  as 
many  do  still.  Compelled  to  own  that  the  Church  had  given 
occasion  for  attacks  under  which  it  risked  being  destroyed,  he 
purposely  exaggerated  its  errors  and  vices  in  discipline,  with  the 
view  of  making  people  think  that  these  formed  the  source  of  all 
that  was  wrong.  Then,  this  was  a  subject  on  which  Rome 
could  be  severe  without  condemning  herself,  and  there  were  so 
few  such,  that  we  cannot  wonder  at  her  anxiety  to  profit  by 
them. 

The  president,  therefore,  had  sought  to  acquire  popularity  at 
the  expense  of  the  bishops  ;  he  forgot  that  the  bishops  had  am- 
ple materials  for  doing  the  same  thing  at  the  expense  of  the 
Court  of  Rome  and  of  the  pope.  Residence,  said  James  Cortesi, 
bishop  of  Fiesoli,  I  admit  to  have  been  at  one  time  absolutely 
necessary  ;  but  at  the  present  day,  what  use  can  it  serve  ?  To 
preserve  purity  of  doctrine  ?  Why,  the  first  monk  that  comes 
may  preach  what  doctrines  he  thinks  fit,  without  the  bishop 
having  any  power  to  silence  him.  To  check  the  corruption  of 
the  clergy  ?  The  most  corrupt  portion  of  them — the  monks — 
are  out  of  their  jurisdiction,  and  there  is  not  a  paltry  priest  who 
cannot  purchase,  or  procure  the  purchase,  at  Rome,  of  exemp- 
tions, with  which  to  screen  himself  from  episcopal  authority. 
To  exercise  a  stricter  oversight  in  admitting  men  to  the  priest- 
hood ?  There  are  itinerant  bishops  sent  out  from  Rome,  Avho, 
for  ready  cash,  make  priests  of  those  wdiom  the  bishop  has 
rejected.  If  the  bishops  don't  reside,  it  is  because  they  have 
nothing  to  do.  Give  them  a  true  authority,  or,  rather,  restore 
that  of  which  they  ought  never  to  have  been  deprived,  and  then 
they  will  reside. 


Chap.  III.  154G.  SALVATION    HY    GRACE.  135 

These  remarks,  though  bitterly  severe,  were  not  the  less 
generally  just.  The  greater  number  of  the  bishops  would  not 
venture  to  express  themselves  thus  ;  all  they  durst  do,  and  it  was 
a  great  deal,  was  to  decide,  that  in  treating  of  the  residence  of 
the  bishops,  the  re-establishment  of  their  authority  should  also 
be  seen  to.  We  shall  have  frequent  occasion  to  revert  to  the 
difficulties  with  which  the  question,  thus  stated,  was  encom- 
passed, and  which  kept  it  for  sixteen  years  before  the  council 
before  it  could  be  brought  to  a  conclusion. 

Five-and-twenty  propositions  on  grace,  extracted  from  the 
books  written  by  Luther  and  other  divines,  were  to  serve  the 
purpose  of  fixing  the  limits  of  the  field  for  debate.  We  do  not 
reproduce  the  discussions  that  followed.  Without  explanation 
they  would  be  little  understood  by  the  common  reader  ;  to  ex- 
plain them  we  must  defend  some,  and  attack  others,  all  which 
would  take  us  far  too  much  out  of  our  regular  course. 

In  the  face  of  a  religion  in  which  works  were  tending  more 
and  more  to  be  everything,  Luther  may  possibly  have  failed  to 
explain,  with  sufficient  clearness,  from  the  very  first,  in  what 
sense  he  considered  works  to  be  nothing.  "  If  at  the  com- 
mencement," he  afterwards  said,i  u  j  gpoke  and  wrote  with 
such  asperity  against  Avorks,  it  was  because  Christ  had  been 
hidden  and  obscured  in  the  Church,  and  buried  under  a  load  of 
superstitions.  My  desire  was  to  liberato  from  this  tyranny  pious 
and  God-fearing  souls.  But  never,  never  have  I  rejected  works." 
Thus,  in  his  alarm  at  the  consequences  of  a  system  in  which 
people  seemed  hardly  to  have  any  more  need  of  a  Saviour  to 
merit,  to  effect  their  salvation,  he  had  not  sufficiently  kept  in 
mind  that  one  extreme  never  can  justify  another.  But  if  guilty 
of  exaggeration  it  was  more  in  words  than  in  ideas,  and  the 
twenty-live  propositions  submitted  to  the  council  did  not  repro- 
duce his  ideas  so  much  as  his  words. 

Bossuet  would  fain  prove  that  the  reformer's  exaggerations 
had  not  even  a  pretext  to  excuse  them.  "  The  Roman  Church," 
says  he,-  "  fully  admits  salvation  by  grace ;  never  has  she 
taught  that  it  may  be  bought,  paid  for,  by  the  eflbrts  and  the 
works  of  man."  He  demonstrates  this  by  some  expressions  in  the 
decree  itself,  which  was  to  be  promulgated  in  the  sixth  session. 

But  when  Luther  spoke,  where  was  that  decree  ?  Shall  m'c 
be  told  that  there  were  others  ?  In  fact,  Ave  know  that  several 
councils,  several  popes  even.  Innocent  III.  in  particular,  had 
written  some  fine  things  on  the  subject  of  justification  by  faith. 
In  theory,  and  with  the  pen  in  their  hand,  how  could  they 

*  Table-Talk.  ^  Variations,  book  iii. 


136  HISTORY   OF  THE   COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  II. 

speak  otherwise  ?  Unless  they  would  maintain  that  man  could 
save  himself,  and  that  Jesus  Christ  might  have  dispensed  with 
coming,  there  must  always  have  been  the  necessity  of  abiding 
more  or  less  in  the  ideas  preached  by  Luther.  But  did  those 
ideas  pass  into  practice  ?  Were  they  to  be  found,  we  will  not 
say  among  the  common  people,  with  the  strong  tendency  they 
have,  whatever  doctrines  they  hear  preached,  to  believe  in  justi- 
fication by  works,  but  in  the  ordinary  instructions,  in  the  usages, 
in  the  laws,  in  the  manners,  in  the  ceremonies  of  the  Church  ? 
What  can  be  adduced  from  these  sources  that  did  not,  in  spite 
of  those  few  words  hidden  in  books,  lead  at  that  time  directly, 
inevitably,  to  that  tyranny  of  works  from  which  Luther  desired 
to  dehver  Christendom  ?  But,  after  the  council,  was  there  any 
change  ?  And  supposing  that  the  council  had  frankly  decreed 
that  it  is  by  works  that  we  are  to  be  saved,  what  would  there 
have  been  to  change  in  the  actual  religion  that  was  then  to  be 
found  in  those  countries  where  Roman  Catholicism  was  all 
powerful,  in  Italy,  at  Rome,  under  the  eyes  of  the  pope  ? 

Luther's  commentary  on  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  published 
at  Rome  under  the  assumed  name  of  Fregoso,  had  met  with 
great  success  there. ^  It  had  been  found  necessary  to  know  who 
the  author  was,  in  order  to  discover  the  poison  wdiich  the  council 
was  about  to  analyze.  But  on  the  question  of  original  sin,  it 
was  much  more  easy  to  condemn  than  to  say  why  they  con- 
demned, and  still  more,  to  come  to  agree  as  to  what  should  be 
put  in  the  place  of  the  propositions  that  were  condemned.  We 
should  find  twenty  pages  too  little  for  the  shortest  possible 
abridgment  of  the  opinions  that  were  expressed  in  the  course 
of  the  discussion.  Not  an  idea,  true  or  false,  that  was  not  pre- 
sented with  an  interminable  train  of  scholastical  divisions  and 
subdivisions  ;  not  a  single  point  on  which  there  were  not  at 
least  two  quite  diflerent  opinions,  and  as  for  different  shades  of 
sentiment,  there  were  almost  as  many  as  there  were  divines. 
Hence  endless  contentions  ;  hence  scenes  in  which  the  disputants 
went  so  far  as  to  seize  each  other  by  the  beard,^  and  in  which 
the  dignity  of  the  assembly  was  miserably  frittered  away  and 
disappeared. 

^  See  ia  Ranke  how  nearly,  at  the  time  of  Luther's  first  publieatious, 
his  doctrine  of  justification  wa?  about  to  become  that  of  all  the  learned 
and  pious  Italians.  Thou  hast  brought  to  the  light  that  precious  stone 
tohich  the  Church  kept  half  concealed,  wrote  Pole  himself  to  Contarini, 
afterwards  cardinal,  but  at  that  time  the  most  Lutheran  of  the  Roman 
Catliolics.  The  dread  of  consequences  alone  had  led  to  the  abandon- 
ment of  the  principle. 

=  San  Felix,  bishop  of  Cava,  and  Zannetino,  bishop  of  Chiron.  Pal- 
lavicini,  b.  viii.  eh.  vi. 


Chap.  111.  1546.     DIFFICULTY   OF  THE   QUESTION   OF   GRACE.  137 

Faitlitul  to  their  old  promise  of  dclayinj^  to  the  utmost  the 
condemnation  oi' tlic  Lutherans,  the  legates  lelt  no  uneasiness  at 
the  leu'i^th  ol"  the  disputes  ;  people  did  not  seem  to  be  sensible  oi' 
the  dama<!^e  thus  done  beiorcluind  to  the  authority  o("  the  decrees 
that  were  to  issue  from  so  troubled  a  source.  However,  when 
it  was  seen  that  they  could  not  last  longer  without  the  council's 
being  transformed  into  a  school  of  angry  theologues,  the  drawing 
up  oi"  the  decrees  began  to  be  seriously  considered.  Here,  then, 
it  was  for  the  bishops  to  set  themselves  to  work ;  but  their  pre- 
vious embarrassments  had  been  mere  child's  play  compared  with 
those  into  which  they  were  now  about  to  plunge.  In  the  ques- 
tion of  original  sin,  two  or  three  points  had  at  least  remained 
free  IVoin  all  attempts  at  unsettlement ;  here  there  was  nothing 
that  was  not  contested,  or,  at  least,  explained  so  variously,  that 
the  variety  of  forms  was  equivalent  to  a  complete  disagreement 
in  the  essence.  Grace  presents  one  of  those  problems  which 
the  heart  can  alone  resolve  ;  the  moment  you  Avould  reduce  it 
into  articles  it  eludes  your  grasp.  You  believe,  of  course,  in 
heat,  in  light.  Try  to  seize,  to  imprison  it.  This  you  think 
would  be  insanity.  Do  you  therefore  deny  its  existence  ?  I\o  ; 
that  would  be  still  greater  insanity.  AVell,  then,  believe  in  grace 
as  you  believe  in  light,  in  heat,  in  life,  in  love.  Love  I  what- 
ever be  the  kind  of  love  in  question,  if  you  set  yourself  to  study 
it  as  a  schoolman  would  do,  you  will  not  find  four  men  in  a 
thousand  who  agree  on  the  definition  that  should  be  given  to 
it,  or  on  the  divisions  and  subdivisions  to  be  introduced  into  it. 
Leave  to  it  its  own  undefined  and  noble  amplitude,  and  there 
will  nowhere  be  found  a  man  who,  however  he  may  deny  it  in 
theory,  is  not  compelled  to  open  to  it,  under  one  form  or  another, 
some  one  of  the  thousand  entrances  into  his  heart. 

• 

To  the  difficulty  of  drawing  up  any  decree  on  a  subject  of  this 
nature  there  was  added  that  of  veiling  the  infinite  diversity  of 
views  that  had  come  to  light.  It  was  not,  however,  proposed, 
not  at  least  openly,  to  get  rid  of  the  matter  by  paying  no  atten- 
tion to  these.  Many  indeed  would  have  been  delighted  at  this 
being  done.  After  what  has  been  seen  in  the  preceding  session 
we  seem  fully  warranted  to  believe  this  ;  but  the  general  feeling 
was  that  it  was  too  soon  to  return  tg  that  course.  Besides,  the 
observations  of  parties  beyond  the  council  had  not  been  wanting  ; 
the  epithet  most  prudent  had  been  ironically  added  in  many  a 
pamphlet  to  the  titles  assumed  by  the  council.  In  fine,  as  it 
was  in  the  course  of  discussions  on  grace  that  the  Reformation 
had  made  such  an  explosion,  the  council  felt  itself  not  in  a  posi- 
tion to  condemn  it  Avithout  having  fixed  this  first  ground  of  doc- 
trine. 


138  HISTORY    OF  THE   COUNCIL    OF  TRENT.  Book  II. 

It  was  Cervini,  cardinal  of  Santa  Croce,  the  second  legate, 
who  undertook  this  thorny  and  bold  piece  of  business.  A  com- 
mission, however  few  the  members,  would  never  have  brought 
it  to  a  close  ;  it  was  necessary  that  there  should  be  one  man  to 
do  it,  and  that  a  person  who  was  not  to  be  lightly  trifled  with. 
Yet  the  cardinal  shewed  himself  beyond  measure  kindly  and  com- 
plaisant. So  accessible  was  he  to  the  smallest  observations,  so 
ready  was  he  to  modify  and  change  words  and  ideas,  that  you 
would  have  said  that  he  was  not  the  president  but  the  humble 
clerk,  writing  out  everything,  preserving  ever}-thing,  elaborating 
everything.  His  sole  object,  his  sole  thought,  was  to  bring  the 
matter  to  a  close  to  everybody's  content,  or  at  least  so  to  con- 
trive that  there  should  be  no  one  discontented  enough  to  pro- 
test. 

And  he  succeeded,  but  not  until  the  close  of  three  fatiguing 
months  and  fifty  sittings,  particular  or  general.  Sarpi  asserts 
that  he  had  seen  the  minutes  of  countless  changes  made  by  the 
cardinal  on  the  first  draft ;  he  shews  that  the  greater  number  of 
those  modifications  tended  to  substitute  vagueness  for  what  was 
positive,  obscurity  for  clearness,  and  for  contested  points  ambig- 
uous expressions,  in  which  the  most  diverse,  nay,  the  most  con- 
tradictory opinions,  as  we  shall  yet  see,  might  equally  claim  the 
credit  of  having  made  the  law.  We  know  nothing  more  de- 
plorably astute  than  the  sixteen  chapters  of  that  decree.  It  pre- 
sents one  of  those  Herculean  labours  which  we  admire  in  spite 
of  ourselves,  not  for  their  intrinsic  worth,  but  in  consideration  of 
the  pains,  the  time,  the  imperturbable  patience  of  which  they  are 
the  fruit.  But  here,  together  with  perseverance  and  art,  what 
incredible  audacity !  "What,  pretend  that  this  decree,  which  has 
cost,  you  three  months'  hard  labour,  and  in  the  arrangement  of 
which  you  have  so  often  felt  your  absolute  inability  to  decide 
with  precision  any  of  the  points  to  be  found  in  it ;  this  decree, 
in  which  you  have  openly  made  concessions  to  the  most  opposite 
opinions,  and  which,  only  yesterday,  you  held  yourself  quite  pre- 
pared to  modify,  here  and  there  erasing  or  putting  in,  just  as  you 
would  do  with  any  other  piece  of  writing  —  this  decree,  on  the 
arrival  of  the  session,  has  been  read  with  the  usual  ceremony, 
and,  lo  1  it  is  forthwith  inviolable  and  sacred  I  It  will  traverse 
ages  without  man,  angel,  prophet,  no,  not  the  Son  of  God  him- 
self, were  he  to  return  to  this  world,  having  the  power  to  alter 
a  word  of  it,  seeing  that  would  infer  a  disavowal  of  the  Church, 
to  which,  according  to  you,  he  himself  dictated  it.  Nothing  is 
more  curious  than  the  sincerity  with  which,  by  way  of  compli- 
ment to  the  council,  this  tedious  operation  has  been  acknowl- 
edged, although  its  very  length  and  laboriousness  form,  self- 


Chap.  III.  1540.  ATROCIOUS   INCONSISTENCY.  139 

evidently,  so  strong  an   argument   against  that  very  council's 
authority.     "  It  is  not  to  be  believed,"  says  Pallaviciui,^  "  with 
what  eare,  with  what  subtlety,  with  what  perseveranee,  ever}' 
syllable  of  it  was  weighed  and  discussed,  first  in  the  congrega- 
tions of  the  divines,  who  only  advisinl  in  the  matter,  and  after- 
wards in  that  of  the  fathers  who  had  the  definitive  voice."    "  In 
vain,"  says  Father  Biner,  "  would  any  one  charge  the  council 
with  having  treated  subjects  superficially Long  deliber- 
ations were  often  thought  necessary  before  a  single  word  could 
be  added,  taken  away,  or  altered."     This  does  not  prove,  be  it 
remarked  in  passing,  that  there  may  not  also  have  been  subjects 
that  were  treated  with  far  too  much  haste,  and  we  shall  see  that 
there  was  more  than  one  such  ;  but  to  keep  to  the  point  of  view 
thus  indicated,  what  an  imprudent  apology  I  When  called  upon 
to  speak,  said  Jesus  Christ  to  his  apostles,  "  take  no  thought 
beforehand  what  ye  shall  speak."     This  is  inspiration  :  this  is 
infallibility.     Without  this  we  cannot  have  any  conception  of  it. 
If  you  required  whole  hours,  whole  days  to  decide  upon  a  word, 
who  shall  guarantee  that  by  prolonging  your  deliberations  a  little 
more  you  would   not  at  last  have  decided  in  favour  of  some 
other  ?     You  prove  to  us  the  matureness  of  the  decrees ;  but 
matureness,  quite  a  human  thing,  necessarily  supposes  the  pos- 
sibility of  a  still  higher  degree  of  matureness  ;  the  moment  you 
make  it  of  any  avail  in  favour  of  a  decree,  you  acknowledge  the 
introduction  of  an  element  that  is  human,  variable,  fallible.     If 
not,  then  would  you  have  it  that  God,  by  the  medium  of  your 
hand,  has  made  those  innumerable  erasures.     These  gropings 
in  all  directions — shall  we  say  of  them  that  it  was  the  Holy 
Ghost,  who,  before  dictating  his  last  word  to  you,  led  you  dancing 
about  from  error  to  error  ?     Go,  after  this,  go  and  declaim  against 
the  vagaries  of  Paganism  I     Never  did  Greece,  never  did  Italy, 
or  India,  adopt  any  such  monstrous  improbability.     When  the 
Brahmin  ordains  anything  to  be  believed,  it  is  at  least  in  the 
name  of  decrees  which  he  himself  has  not  made,  and  whose 
origin  is  lost  in  the  night  of  time  ;  but  to  command  faith,  to  shut 
and  to  open  heaven,  on  the  strength  of  a  law  which  may  be 
found  in  its  rough  draft  with  blots  and  erasures,  why,  this  is 
an  audacity  which  has  never  been  approached  by  the  very  falsest 
religions. 

The  fruits  of  all  this  were  not  long  in  making  their  appear- 
ance. The  council  had  sown  the  wind  and  could  expect  only 
to  reap  the  whirlwind.  "  Some  men  speak  in  order  to  be  under- 
stood," wrote  afterwards  Gui  de  Pibrach  to  the  Chancellor  de 

^  B.  viii.  oil.  xi. 


140  HISTORY   OF   THE    COUNCIL    OF   TRENT.  .  Book  II. 

I'Hopital ;  "  these  men  speak  that  they  may  not  be  understood."^ 
This  was  soon  to  be  proved  by  a  strange  occurrence. 

Shortly  after  the  pubhcation  of  the  decree  upon  grace  a  book 
appeared  with  the  title,  "  De  JSfaticra  et  Gratia.''  Dominick 
Soto,  the  author,  was  one  of  the  council's  leading  divines.  To 
the  council  itself  he  dedicated  his  work.  Before  the  authority 
ot  that  venerable  body  he  humbly  prostrates  himself  in  his  pre- 
face ;  he  speaks  of  the  decree  with  profound  admiration,  a  feeling 
to  which  he  was  no  doubt  all  the  more  alive,  inasmuch  as  that 
decree  was  partly  his  own  work.  "  The  book,*'  he  says,  "  will 
be  no  more  than  a  feeble  commentary  upon  it."  And,  in  fact, 
there  is  not  a  page  of  it  in  which  he  has  not  the  air  of  a  man 
who  rests  implicitly  on  the  ideas  and  the  expressions  of  that  de- 
cree. Never  were  the  Scriptures  themselves  more  respectfully 
turned  to  account. 

The  book  was  read,  and  it  suggested  reflections ;  it  was  viewed 
with  a  certain  feeling  of  anxiety.  Some  readers,  at  a  great  loss 
to  recognise  in  the  commentary  what  they  had  put,  or  thought 
they  had  put,  into  the  text,  were  ready  to  exclaim  with  Socrates 
in  reference  to  Plato — "  What  things  he  makes  us  say  I"  Others, 
although  they  leant  to  Soto's  views,  hesitated  to  accept  from  his 
hand  a  victory  which  the  council  had  left  undecided.  Not  a 
word  was  said  on  either  side  ;  it  was  felt  that  a  single  word  was 
all  that  was  required  to  re-open  an  abyss. 

That  word  was  launched  by  Catharini.  Passing  by  all  the 
points  on  which  there  was  scope  for  shifts  and  evasions,  he  went 
straight  to  the  one  that  was  most  susceptible  of  being  decided 
by  a  yes  or  a  7io.  Can  the  just  man  be  sure  of  his  having  grace  ? 
No  had  been  Soto's  answer,  and  according  to  him  it  was  the 
opinion  also  of  the  council.  Yes,  replied  Catharini,  and  so, 
according  to  him,  had  the  council  decreed.  Which  was  in  the 
wrong  ?  Why,  neither  the  one  nor  the  other,  for  the  council 
had  said  neither  yes  nor  no;  b  .fc  both  were  wrong  in  wishing  to 
extract  from  the  decree  what  both  well  knew  not  to  be  there. 
Soto  resumed  his  thesis ;  Catharini  returned  to  the  charge.  And 
it  was  always  to  the  council  that  they  addressed  themselves, 
always  to  the  council  that  they  complained,  with  equal  bitter- 
ness, that  its  decisions  were  perverted  from  their  proper  sense ; 
always  to  the  council,  in  fine,  each  of  them  presented  himself  as 
the  true  and  sole  defender  of  its  infallible  authority.  And  the 
council  held  its  peace,  and  was  to  do  so  to  the  last.  Neither  the 
urgent  appeals  of  the  two  champions,  nor  the  solicitations  of 
some  of  the  members,  neither  the  visible  uneasiness  of  all  good 

'  "  Cum  cseteri  homines  loquuntur  \\i  intelligi  possint,  isti  nihil  magis 
vohmt  quam  ne  intelligantur." 


Chap.  III.  1546         DISCUSSIONS   ON   VARIOUS   POINTS.  141 

Roman  Catholics,  nor  the  jests  which  were  current  all  over 
Europe,^  nothing,  in  short,  could  prevail  with  it  to  put  an  end 
to  the  contest  by  saying,  once  lor  all,  what  the  meaning  was 
which  it  wished  to  be  attached  to  its  decree. 

But  why  press  this  ?  It  is  a  case  in  which,  if  ever,  the  facts 
speak  for  themselves.  Any  ordinary  assembly  which  should  see 
serious  controversies  occasioned  by  the  vagueness  of  one  of  its 
decisions,  and  should  refuse  to  give  a  precise  statement  of  its 
bearing,  would  be  of  itself  a  singularity  perhaps  unique  in  his- 
tory ;  but  should  that  assembly,  at  the  very  time  that  it  main- 
tained this  silence,  persist  in  holding  itself  out  to  the  Christian 
world  as  the  regulator  of  its  faith,  it  would  present  an  instance 
of  contempt  for  common  sense  which  it  would  be  difficult  to  find 
terms  to  describe. 

Let  us  now  resume  the  thread  of  our  history.  The  picture  of 
dissension  would  be  incomplete  without  adding  that  of  the  de- 
bates of  another  kind,  which  had  never  ceased  to  obstruct  the 
tedious  elaboration  of  the  decree.  We  have  seen  the  emperor, 
up  to  the  commencement  of  hostilities,  do  his  best  to  retard  the 
condemnation  of  the  Lutherans,  with  whom  he  did  not  despair 
of  coming  to  a  settlement  of  differences.  At  the  moment  of  his 
marching  against  them  he  had  seemed  to  desire  that  Trent  should 
have  its  thunders  in  readiness ;  after  vanquishing  them  he 
thought  his  own  were  enough,  and  had  begun  to  slacken  fire. 
As  for  the  translation  of  the  council,  he  persisted  in  refusing  his 
consent,  and  the  pope,  consequently,  ceased  to  have  the  ap- 
pearance of  desiring  it.  We  have  seen  that  the  legates  wished 
it ;  with  the  conviction  that  the  pontiff  would  like  it  as  soon  as 
it  was  possible,  all  their  efforts  were  directed  to  procuring  the 
consent  of  the  emperor.  Meanwhile,  at  Trent,  they  loudly  opposed 
the  idea  of  it ;  they  even  menaced  with  the  pope's  indignation 
those  who  spoke  of  going  away  ;  but  their  sentiments  were  so 
well  known,  that  this  was  a  task  they  had  to  begin  afresh  every 
day.  Those  who  returned  to  the  charge  well  knew  whose  favour 
they  were  courting. 

From  all  this  there  arose  a  medley  of  the  most  heterogeneous 
discussions.  One  day  there  would  be  a  meeting  to  discuss  one 
of  the  most  abstruse  articles  of  the  decree  on  grace,  but  hardly 
would  the  members  be  assembled  when  they  would  begin  to 

^  The  council  prophesied,  it  was  said,  like  Caiaphas,  -who  prophesied 
without  knowing  what  he  said.  And  the  sting  of  the  jest  lay  in  this, 
that  it  was  but  the  reproduction  of  one  of  the  ligures  employed  by  the 
Bishop  of  Bitonto  in  that  famous  sermon  in  which  he  had  tried  to  prove, 
that  whether  it  meant  it  or  not,  the  council  would  be  the  organ  of  God. 


142  HISTORY    OF    THE    COUNCIL    OF   TRENT.  Book  U. 

debate  about  the  chances  of  war,  the  urgent  reasons  for  quitting 
the  city,  the  best  means  of  diminishing  the  dearth  of  provisions, 
kc.  Another  day,  with  their  minds  absorbed  with  such  sub- 
jects of  anxiety  and  alarm,  they  would  bravely  set  themselves 
to  the  task  of  weighing  the  syllables  of  that  chef-cV (Euvi'e  of 
obscurity,  which  they  must  needs  terminate  at  some  time. 

Finally,  and  at  the  same  time  too,  the  decree  on  the  residence 
of  bishops  had  to  be  elaborated.  We  have  spoken  of  the  diffi- 
culties that  beset  the  subject,  and  will  now  present  some  farther 
explanations. 

From  the  fourth  or  the  fifth  century,  perhaps  even  earlier,  the 
practice  had  been  introduced  of  ordaining  priests  without  attach- 
ing them  to  any  church.  Those  priests  received  no  pay  ;  those 
even  who  belonged  nominally  to  a  church,  but  without  perma- 
nent residence  or  the  discharge  of  ministerial  functions  there, 
had  no  share  in  the  revenues  of  their  working  colleagues.  So 
strictly  were  those  revenues  regarded  as  solely  destined  to  the 
men  who  had  earned  them  as  their  wages,  that  the  very  savings 
of  a  priest  did  not  belong  to  him,  but  reverted  at  his  death  to 
the  general  fund.  A  testament  to  the  contraiy  would  have  been 
null  and  void,  and  it  was  even  looked  upon  as  a  fraud  to  attempt 
the  evasion  of  this  law  by  disposing  of  them  in  the  way  of  a  do- 
nation inter  vivos. ^  By  little  and  little,  in  proportion  as  the 
Church  grew  in  wealth,  and  as  its  charges  became  dignities  in 
the  worldly  sense  of  that  word,  secular  princes  arrogated  to 
themselves  the  right  of  bestowing  them  as  a  recompense  for 
services  rendered  to  the  state  or  to  them.  Hence  the  name 
of  benefices  {beneficia,  favours),  under  which  people  came  at 
last  to  designate  all  those  of  which  the  revenues  exceeded  a 
mere  stipend,  barely  proportioned  to  the  work  performed  ;  hence, 
also,  the  custom  of  leaving  that  work  to  be  done  by  an  inferior 
minister,  paying  him  shabbily  for  his  trouble,  and  leaving  the  spot 
to  reside  elsewhere.  From  the  sixth  to  the  thirteenth  century, 
ecclesiastical  charges  were  multiplied  beyond  measure.  Gifts 
bestowed  on  the  Church  were  generally  converted  into  founda- 
tions of  places  to  be  endowed  ;  this,  in  most  instances,  was  the 
express  desire  of  the  donors.  People  wished  to  carrj'  to  the 
grave  with  them  the  assurance  that  a  priest  would  be  main- 
tained, in  all  time,  on  their  donations  to  the  Church.  In  found- 
ing chapels — and  who,  that  had  the  ability,  did  not  then  found 
them  ? — the  founders  would  have  thought  their  purpose  but 
half  accomplished  if  they  did  not  bequeath  enough  of  property 
for  the  maintenance  of  one  or  more  priests,  to  perform  divine 
service  in  them.  In  the  greater  number  of  cathedrals,  the  num- 
*  See  Hurler's  Institutions  of  the  OJmrch,  h.  iv. 


Chap.  HI.  1510.     HISTORICAL  REVIEW-PIOUS  DONATIONS.  143 

bor  of  canons  far  exceeded,  \vc  do  not  say  the  actual  needs,  lor 
they  could  have  been  dispensed  with  altogether,  but  what  rniglit 
have  been  reasonably  allotted  for  the  external  necessities  of  wor- 
ship. At  Rouen,  at  Clermont,  at  Saintes,  and  in  many  other 
cities,  there  Avere  as  many  as  Ibrty  ;  at  Autun,  fifty  ;  at  Toul, 
sixty  ;  at  Blois,  eighty.  The  number  of  vicars  attached  to  those 
churches  was  generally  gi'eater  still :  Toul  cathedral  had  nearly  a 
hundred.  Some  mere  parish  churches  were  in  the  same  case. 
That  of  St.  Alban,  at  Namur,  had  twenty  canons  and  twenty 
vicars.  Campclt,  a  village  three  leagues  from  Paris,  had  also 
twenty  canons.  At  the  commencement  of  the  last  century 
there  were  about  an  hundred  and  sixty  thousand  priests  in 
France,  four  times  the  number  at  present,  although  the  popula- 
tion was  less  by  a  third.  No  laAv,  in  fine,  regulated  their  dis- 
tribution over  the  country.  At  the  side  of  a  village  having  a 
complement  of  twenty  canons,  you  would  find  another  where  a 
single  priest  had  hardly  wherewithal  to  live.^  The  donors  scat- 
tered their  gifts  where  they  pleased  ;  there  was  nothing  to  com- 
pel them  to  take  the  real  wants  of  the  people  into  consideration. 
Often  a  mere  casual  circumstance  would  enrich  a  church  and 
multiply  its  priests.  A  nobleman,  setting  oft'  for  war,  might 
have  a  sudden  access  of  piety.  Stopping  at  the  first  village 
that  ofiered  itself,  he  would  enter  the  church,  make  a  vow,  and, 
if  he  returned  safe  and  sound,  the  humble  parish  living  would 
become  perhaps  a  wealthy  benefice.  A  petty  Savoyard  herds- 
man takes  a  fancy  for  entering  into  orders,  and  w^ith  this  in  view 
leaves  his  home  for  Avignon.  At  Geneva  he  covets  a  pair  of 
shoes.  But  how  is  he  to  pay  for  them,  for  he  has  nothing  ? 
"  Take  them,"  says  the  shoemaker,  "  and  pay  me  when  you  are 
a  cardinal."  Forty  years  afterwards,  on  the  spot  where  once 
stood  that  humble  shop,  a  sumptuous  chapel  arose,-  served  by 
tJiirteen  priests.  This  was  the  Cardinal  de  Brogny's  payment 
of  his  debt. 

Far  be  it  from  us,  then,  to  pretend  to  censure,  in  themselves, 
such  exhibitions  of  a  piety,  sometimes  very  unenlightened,  but 
certainly  lively  and  sincere.  The  history  of  pious  foundations 
teems  with  affecting  facts,  and  with  admirable  legends  ;  but 
the  more  these  facts,  each  viewed  apart,  interest  and  disarm 
you,  the  more  occasion  will  you  find  for  being  surprised,  if  not 

'  It  oddly  happens  that  one  of  the  countries  in  which  these  whimsi- 
cal inequalities  are  most  preserved  is  a  Protestant  country.  But  what 
is  more  curious  still,  is  the  declamation  of  Roman  Cathohcism  against 
Anglican  opulence  and  the  vices  of  that  organization.  What  then  has 
England  done  but  made  no  change  on  this  point  from  what  existed 
previous  to  Henry  VIII.  ? 

^  Called  the  Chapel  of  the  Maccabees,  at  the  side  of  the  Cathedral. 


144  HISTORY   OF   THE    COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  II. 

scandalized,  at  the  abuses  of  all  sorts  which  could  not  fail  to 
spring  out  of  them.  The  greater  number  of  the  beneficiaries 
having  literally  nothing  to  do,  nothing,  at  least,  which  they 
could  not  do  equally  well  elsewhere,*  it  would  have  been  absurd 
to  force  them  to  reside  on  their  benefices.  Hence,  for  all  others 
as  well  as  them,  a  perpetual  encouragement  to  negligence,  to 
sloth,  and  to  the  disorders  that  arise  from  sloth.  Had  they  all 
been  either  absolutely  bound  to  residence  or  absolutely  released 
from  it,  the  evil  might  possibly  have  been  less  ;  but  from  the 
beneficiary  without  functions,  to  the  parish  priest  burdened  with 
ministerial  duties,  there  was  a  multitude  of  degrees,  none  of 
w^iich  was  far  enough  removed  from  its  neighbour  for  non-resi- 
dence, when  once  established  with  respect  to  the  one,  not  to 
estabhsh  itself  in  the  other  also.  In  fine,  notwithstanding  the 
severity  of  general  rules,  made  or  renewed  from  time  to  time  by 
councils  and  popes,  there  ceased  to  be  any  benefices  in  which 
exemption  from  obligation  to  residence,  might  not  be  either 
taken  at  once,  or  procured.  The  bishops,  in  particular,  an-o- 
gated  for  themselves  full  liberty  in  this  respect,  and  their  in- 
dulo-ence  for  themselves  forced  them  to  wink  at  all  disorders  of 

c 

the  same  sort. 

Of  one  mind  in  acknowledging  that  here  there  was  an  evil, 
and  a  great  evil  too,  the  members  of  the  council  ere  long  fell  out 
among  themselves  when  a  remedy  had  to  be  sought  for,  and  the 
nature  of  that  remedy  determined. 

Is  residence  a  matter  of  divine  or  only  of  ecclesiastical  obliga- 
tion ?  In  other  terms,  when  a  bishop  dispenses  with  residence  in 
his  own  case,  does  he  disobey  God  or  the  pope  ?  And  if  it  be  with 
the  papal  sanction,  can  he  be  considered  as  guilty  towards  God  ? 

Here  we  have  another  of  those  questions  the  very  statement 
of  which  is  of  itself  an  indictment  against  the  Church  in  which 
they  could  have  possibly  occurred.  That  a  pastor  called  to  pre- 
side over  a  flock  might  forsake  it  without  sinning  against  God, 
or  that,  after  having  obtained  authorization  to  do  so  from  a  man, 
he  should  be,  before  God,  free  from  blame,  is  an  opinion  which 
the  primitive  Christians  would  not  even  have  condemned  as  an 
error.  He  who  could  have  entertained  it,  would  have  seemed 
rather  to  be  pitied  as  having  lost  his  senses,  than  held  guilty  of 
a  heresy. 

At  Trent,  not  only  was  this  opinion  announced,  but  it  found 
warm  defenders. 

Their  adversaries,  to  say  the  truth,  did  not  well  know  what 
to  adduce  in  reply.     Often  the  plainer  a  truth  is,  the  more  diffi- 

^  Many  were  bound  to  nothing  but  reading  the  Breviary,  and  dis- 
pensations might  be  obtained  even  from  that. 


Chap.  HI.  154G.  RESIDENCE   OF    BISHOPS.  U5 

cult  it  is  to  demonstrate  it  in  set  phrases.     Were  we  to  be  asked 
why  we  think  that  a  priest  oiiends  God,  directly  God,  and  not 
the  pope  or  God  in  the  pope,  when  he  abandons  his  Church  and 
keeps  his  revenues,  in  truth  we  should  not  know  what  to  reply. 
AVe  should  say  that  there  can  be  no  doubt  about  it ;  that  the 
plainest  common  sense  sufficiently  demonstrates  it ;'  but  as  for 
arguments  and  proofs,  to  what  quarter  could  we  go  for  them? 
At  the  most  we  might  quote  St.  Paul,  "  Take  heed  to  the  flock 
over  which  the  Holy  Ghost  hath  made  you  overseers;"^  or  St. 
Peter,  "  Feed  the  flock  of  God  which  is  among  you  ;"2  still  we 
might  possibly  meet  with  the  reply,  on  the  latter  text,  that,  see- 
ing it  is  from  St.  Peter,  it  ought  rather  to  prove  the  papal  right. 
Such,  in  fact,  was  the  drift  of  the  reasoning  adopted  at  Trent  by 
the  partisans  of  the  opinion  that  was  cherished  by  the  popes.    One 
might  have  been  able,  without  going  beyond  that  same  chapter, 
to  defy  them  to  shew  a  single  word  in  it  where  Peter  speaks 
with  the  air  of  a  chief  speaking  of  his  own  authority.      "The 
elders,"  says  he,  "  which  are  among  you  I  exhort,  who  also  ajn 
an  elder.     Feed  the  flock  of  God,  and  when  the  Chief  Shepherd 
shall  appear,  ye  shall  receive  a  crown  of  glory  that  fadeth  not 
away."     But  how  shall  we  think  to  convince  by  proofs  from 
Scripture  men  who  have  so  far  rid  themselves  of  respect  for  its 
authority  as  to  build  up  the  system  on  which  they  are  fool-hardy 
enough  to  lean?     "The  episcopate,"   said  some,  "is  of  divine 
institution,  only  hi  the  person  of  the  pope  ;    among  all  other 
bishops,  consequently,  it  is  of  papal  institution.     Suice  it  per- 
tains to  the  pope  to  assign  to  them  the  number  of  sheep  they 
have  to  feed,  it  is  for  him  also  to  prescribe  the  manner  ;   and 
seeing  that  he  may,  if  he  shall  think  fit,  deprive  them  of  the 
power,  may  he  not  also  permit  them  to  abstain  from  exercising 
it?"     Then,  is  not  this  the  case? — should  a  pope  think  fit  to 
consider  himself,  as,  literally,  the  sole  necessary  bishop,  to  dis- 
miss all  others,  and  to  extinguish  with  them  the  whole  inferior 
clergy,  so  as  to  remain  sole  and  only  pastor  of  all  the  K-oman 
Catholic  parishes  in  the  world,  would  he  not  have  the  right  to 
do  so  ?     It  is  absurd,  but  it  is  logical ;   and  we  have  already  seen 
whether  these  words  are   not  often  synonymous  when  people 
would  press  the  consequences  of  the  Roman  system. 

Now,  this  absolute  concentration  in  the  hands  of  the  pope  of 
all  the  powers  of  the  Church  is,  although  many  Roman  Catholics 
are  ignorant  of  it  or  conceal  it — the  Roman  system,  is  the  pure 
and  invariable  ultramontane  doctrine,  that  of  the  court  of  Rome, 
that  of  the  popes.  This  we  shall  ere  long  prove,  and  to  do  so 
we  shall  only  have  to  leave  those  divines  and  bishops  to  speak 
'  Acts  XX.  =  1  Pet.  V. 

G 


146  HISTORY    OF    THE    COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Uook  H. 

who  were  regarded,  at  Trent,  as  the  pope's  procurators  —  the 
avowed  representatives  of  the  papal  doctrines. 

Meanwhile  the  dispute  became  envenomed.  The  legates  saw 
that  the  moment  had  arrived  wdien  the  authority  itself  of  the 
Holy  See,  in  so  far  as  it  is  the  source  of  the  episcopal  power, 
was  about  to  be  questioned  ;  and  of  all  the  posts  they  had  to 
defend  there  was  none  worse  than  this.  '•  We  shall  return  to 
that,"  they  said;  "let  us  proceed  to  what  is  more  urgent." 
Thev  did  return  to  it,  in  fact,  but  at  the  end  of  fifteen  years, 
quite  at  the  close  of  the  council,  and  the  storm  was  only  all  the 
more  violent. 

The  pope  being  thus  put  out  of  the  discussion,  the  sound  part 
of  the  council  could  hardly  have  any  farther  confidence  in  the 
efficacy  of  what  was  about  to  be  laid  down  as  the  law  in  these 
matters.  Of  what  use  was  it  to  prescribe  residence,  as  long  as 
the  Court  of  Rome  should  be  free  to  exempt  whomsoever  it 
pleased  from  the  operation  of  the  law,  or  to  shut  its  eyes  on  all 
contraventions  ?  The  course  taken  was  that  of  laying  dowai  the 
rules,  without  disquieting  themselves,  and,  above  all,  without 
appearing  to  disquiet  themselves  about  future  consequences. 
Those  rules,  besides,  were  by  no  means  hard.  The  prelate  w^ho 
Avithout  sufficient  reason  should  remain  six  months  continuously 
absent  from  his  diocese,  was  to  lose  the  fourth  part  of  his  rev- 
enues ;  an  absence  of  a  year  was  to  infer  deprivation  of  the  half. 
Nothing  more  easy,  therefore,  than  to  keep  within  the  rule,  and 
yet  be  absent  nearly  all  the  year ;  the  bishop  had  only  to  reside 
one  month  in  six,  or  even  one  month  in  twelve,  provided  that 
month  was  laid  out  in  two  fortnights  properly  placed.  Then, 
who  was  to  deprive  a  delinquent  of  the  quarter  or  half  revenue 
he  might  forfeit  ?  The  metropolitan  ?  It  is  doubtful  whether 
he  w^ould  be  disposed  to  do  so,  and,  were  he  disposed,  whether 
he  would  have  the  power.  The  pope  ?  But,  according  to  the 
terms  of  the  decree,  the  affair  ought  not  to  reach  the  pope  until  it 
had  passed  the  hands  of  the  metropolitan.  And  if  it  be  the 
latter  who  offends,  where  then  will  the  sanction  be  ?  This  is 
all  evident ;  it  would  have  availed  as  much  to  have  said  nothing, 
and  to  have  done  nothing.  Had  all  the  members  of  the  council 
been  profoundly  desirous  of  remedying  the  evil,  what  could  they 
have  done  ?  They  had  their  hands  tied  and  their  tongues  also  ; 
for  if  individually  free,  up  to  a  certain  point,  to  say  all  that  they 
thought,  as  a  body  they  were  not  so.  They  were  bid  to  look  at 
abysses  on  all  sides  ;  "  Take  care,"  they  were  told,  "  if  the  pope 
should  tumble  into  one  of  these,  you  will  tumble  in  along  with 
him  I"  And  it  was  all  true.  In  order  to  correct  the  abuses  of 
which  we  have  spoken,  they  could  only  betake  themselves,  in 


Chap.  III.  1546.     CONSTANT   INCREASE    OF   THE    POPE'S    POWER       147 

the  last  resort,  to  the  very  power  which  had  been  their  first  and 
permanent  cause  ;  and  as  ibr  those  grand  ideas  of  order,  piety, 
morahty,  duty,  which  alone  could  have  formed  an  adequate 
barrier  against  like  disorders,  it  would  not  have  been  possible 
seriously  to  appeal  to  these  without  engaging  in  a  contest  with 
him  whose  will,  it  was  thought  desirable,  should  hold  the  place 
of  all  laws,  and  exclusively  determine  all  duties. 

Non-residence  accordingly  was,  on  the  whole,  rather  facilitated 
than  interdicted,  inasmuch  as  the  law  furnished  bishops  with 
the  means  of  reducing  it  to  rules.  Henceforward,  how  could 
they  be  reckoned  on  in  compelling  the  holders  of  inferior  bene- 
fices to  reside  ?  It  was  decided,  however,  that  they  should,  not 
as  bishops,  but  as  the  delegates  of  the  pope,  have  a  certain 
authority  over  those  even  who  had  or  might  have  pontifical 
dispensations.  Those  dispensations  they  behoved  to  verify,  to 
see  also  that  the  absentee  had  provided  a  suitable  substitute,  that 
this  substitute  had  a  suitable  salary,  kc.  Excellent  measures 
these  in  detail,  but  which  ended  only,  in  point  of  legal  principle 
{droit),  in  the  confirmation  of  the  papal  omnipotence,  since 
bishops  could  only  give  a  regular  execution  to  the  dispensations, 
but  could  neither  reject  nor  annul  them.  It  was  also  decided 
that  no  bishop  could  ordain  priests  in  another's  diocese  without 
that  other  bishop's  sanction ;  finally,  that  every  bishop  should,  for 
the  future,  notwithstanding  any  contrary  usage  or  even  any 
exemption  that  might  have  been  granted,  have  the  inspection 
and  the  direction  of  the  chapter  of  his  cathedral  church.  This 
last  article  presented,  of  itself,  the  measure  of  excess  into  which 
the  abuse  of  dispensations  had  fallen.  What  could  we  suppose 
the  position  of  a  bishop  to  be  in  the  face  of  a  body  created  of  old 
to  serve  as  his  council,  and  transformed,  by  the  will  of  the  pope, 
into  an  independent  and  rival  power  ?  It  was  enough  to  drive 
out  of  his  diocese  any  bishop  that  hated  bickerings  and  intrigues. 

Such,  nevertheless,  was  the  point  now  reached,  even  in  spite 
of  the  episcopal  body,  by  the  Roman  system  when  left  to  itself 
and  to  its  own  encroaching  tendencies.  There  had  not  been  in 
the  Homan  Church  a  single  struggle,  a  single. innovation,  a 
single  decree,  which  had  not  ended  at  last,  directly  or  indirectly, 
in  the  extension  of  the  pope's  authority.  As  lor  the  public 
advantage  and  the  salvation  of  souls,  these  were  as  little  thought 
of  as  if  the  whole  concern  had  been  some  vast  industrial  enter- 
prise ;  there  was  not  even  the  affectation  of  these  objects  being 
cared  for.  See  with  what  keenness,  in  this  very  session,  the 
Italians  made  residence  an  affair  of  papal  right.  This  was  very 
impolitic,  it  seems,  and  very  imprudent ;  it  involved  the  trans- 
ference to  the  pope's  shoulders  of  all  the  disorders  and  all  the 


148  HISTORV    OF    THE    (JUUJNCIL    OF   TRENT.  Book  II. 

evils  arising  frbm  non-residence,  and  of  which  the  legates  them- 
selves had,  at  the  opening  of  the  council,  drawn  so  frightful  a 
picture.  Well,  strange  to  say,  this  danger  did  not  disquiet  them 
in  the  least.  Provided  the  question  of  right  was  settled,  they 
did  not  mind  what  reproaches  might  arise  from  matters  of  fact. 
Little  'cared  they  though  the  court  of  Rome  were  accused  of 
having  ruined  the  Church,  by  pushing  the  abuse  of  dispensations 
to  its  very  utmost  verge,  provided  it  should  become  the  standing 
law  that  of  these  dispensations  she  was  to  be  sole  arbitress,  and 
that  it  should  depend  only  on  herself,  should  she  see  fit,  to  do  as 
much  in  time  to  come  as  had  been  done  in  time  past.  Then, 
even  had  they  desired  it,  how  could  they  break  with  that  past 
accumulation  of  abuses  and  disorders  ?  Often  had  the  council 
allowed  an  intention  of  doing  so  to  escape  ;  but  we  should  greatly 
err  were  we  to  suppose  that  the  members  were  diverted  from  that 
intention  only  by  the  resistance  made  by  the  pope  and  by  the 
skilful  management  of  his  agents.  Not  a  step  could  be  taken  in 
that  direction  without  making  the  council  press  against  one  of 
the  supporting  pillars  of  the  edifice,  and  all  men  have  not  the 
courage  of  Sampson. 

After  so  many  months  spent  in  trying  to  come  to  a  common 
understanding,  the  contending  parties  were  still  so  far  from  this, 
that  the  public  sitting  (Session  YL,  13th  January,  1547)  wit- 
nessed the  recommencement  of  the  debate  on  residence ;  the 
decree,  a  circumstance  which  had  not  occurred  before,  could  not 
be  admitted.  "  The  voting  slips,"  says  Pallavicini,^  "  were 
covered  with  so  many  conflicting  remarks,  that  it  was  found 
impossible  then  to  decide  anything  ;  the  legates  reserved  to  them- 
selves the  power  of  examining  these,  and  of  determining  the 
result  according  to  the  views  of  the  majority  in  a  general  con- 
gregation." This  congregation  did  not  meet  until  the  25th  of 
February,  and  as  the  decree  had  in  the  interval  undergone  sev- 
eral modifications,  we  do  not  see  how  it  could  have  been  legally 
maintained  at  the  13th  of  January,  which  is  the  date  it  bears  in 
all  the  collections. 2 

As  for  the  decree  on  grace,  it  had  passed  without  opposition. 

^  Book  viii.  ch.  xviii. 

2  Had  we  any  wish  to  engage  in  disputes  about  forms,  we  should 
find  plenty  of  them  on  this  occasion.  Thus,  for  example,  in  the  deci*ee 
of  the  first  session,  no  mention  is  made  of  the  legates ;  and  in  that  of  the 
second,  it  is  said — "Under  the  presidency  of  the  same  three  legates." 
This  could  not  have  been  a  slip  of  the  memory  ;  it  is  evident  that  there 
had  been  a  wish  to  evade,  at  the  commencement,  the  serious  question 
of  the  presidency,  and  to  resolve  it  afterwards  by  assuming  it  as  a  past 
fact.  The  same  irregularity  reappears  in  the  12th  session,  at  the  re- 
sumption of  the  council  in  1551.  In  strict  justice,  the  act  should  be 
null. 


Chap.  HI.  1540.  THE   DECREE   ON   GRACE.  149 

"  Tnily  it  was  on  that  day,"  says  Pallavicini,  "  that  the  council 
might  glorify  itself  on  the  most  sublime  of  its  works,  lor  that 
was  the  first  day  ou  which  the  Church,  enlightened  by  the  Holy 
Ghost,  taught  fully  to  man  the  sequel  of  his  origin  and  the  true 
l)roperty  of  his  nature."  Between  what  the  historian  tells  us  of 
the  interminable  labours  attending  the  birth  of  this  decree,  and 
all  that  he  is  afterwards  compelled  to  say  about  the  obscurities 
that  were  allowed  to  remain  in  it,  what  are  we  to  think  of  these 
words  ?  Is  this  sarcasm,  or  is  it  falsehood  ?  It  is  neither. 
Pallavicini  does  not  lie  ;  still  less  does  he  sneer.  The  decree  is 
passed.  He  submits  to  it.  The  statue,  after  six  months'  efforts, 
has  reached  the  altar  :  what  did  it  signify  to  him  in  what  man- 
ner, or  of  what  metal,  it  had  been  made  ?  It  is  there,  and  so 
lie  falls  down  and  worships. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

(1547.) 

SESSION  VII.       CANONS  AND   DECREES  ON  THE   SACRAMENTS.       PLU- 
RALITIES.      GOVERNMENT  OF  CATHEDRALS. 

Question  of  the  Sacraments — ^The  number  seven — Historical  and  dog- 
matical difficulties— Oddities— Omnia  a  CAres^o  instituted— How  this 
decree  was  twisted — The  sacraments — Their  necessity — Inaccuracies 
and  sophisms — Intention  necessary — Occasions  or  causes  of  grace — 
"Warm  disputes — What  does  the  Roman  Church  really  teach? — The 
intention  of  the  priest— Objections — What  is  to  be  done? — Baptism 
— Baptism  of  heretics— Holy  Chrism — Confirmation — Historical  view 
— Anathemas — Whose  province  it  is  to  confirm — Receiving  the  holy 
Chrism  —  Gratuitously  —  Historical  view — Sad  realities  —  Twenty- 
seven  anathemas — AVater  of  baptism — Human  arrangements  —  Plu- 
ralities—  Historical  view — Unions  and  commendams  —  The  pope, 
always  the  pope  —  The  eleven  articles  of  the  Spanish  prelates  — 
Reference  to  the  pope — Replies — Salva  semper — Results  —  Roman 
immutability. 

The  seventh  session  was  fixed  for  the  3d  of  March,  1547  ; 
the  council  then  had  two  months  before  it.  It  had  been  previ- 
ously resolved  that  the  order  to  be  followed  should  be  as  much 
as  possible  that  which  appears  in  the  Confession  of  Augsburg  ; 
but  as  this  course  would  have  led  them  to  treat  next  of  the 
Church  and  its  authority,  points  which  many  were  fain  to  treat, 
but  more  were  afraid  to  touch,  the  legates  contrived  to  have  it 
decided  that  they  should  be  passed  over. 

This  then  brought  them  to  the  grand  question  of  the  sacra- 
ments. Cardinal  Santa  Croce  undertook  the  charge  of  the 
congregations  in  which  the  subject  was  to  be  discussed  in  its 
doctrinal  aspect,  and  Cardinal  del  Monte  those  which  were  to 
take  up  the  disciplinary  questions  attached  to  it.  But  notwith- 
standing the  novehy  and  the  interest  of  the  subject,  the  legates 
found  if  beyond  their  power  to  divert  a  great  many  bishops  from 
proposing  that  the  question  of  residence  sliould  be  discussed  con- 
currently. "  Declare  it  to  be  of  divine  right,"  said  the  Spaniards, 
"  and  there  will  no  longer  be  any  need  for  entering  into  so  many 
details,  and  removing  so  many  obstacles.  It  will  speak  sufH- 
ciently  for  itself"  They  were  not  mistaken,  but  this  was  pre- 
cisely what  their  opponents  were  resolved  not  1o  have  at  any 


Chap.  IV.  1547.  NUMBER   OF   THE    SACRAMENTS.  151 

price.  To  declare  openly  that  it  was  not  a  matter  of  papal 
right,  all  well;  but  that  it  was  of  divine  right,  never.  Cardinal 
del  Monte  began  by  representing  that  they  should  at  least  leave 
time  for  the  passions  to  cool ;  next,  as  they  still  pressed  the 
matter,  he  had  recourse  to  what  cut  all  knots  :  he  told  them  that 
the  pope  did  not  wish  them  to  take  that  side  of  the  question. 
It  was  decided,  nevertheless,  that  the  examination  of  the  causes 
of  non-residence  should  be  continued,  and  that  the  plurality  of 
benefices  in  particular  should  be  discussed. 

How  many  sacraments  are  there  ?  This  is  what  had,  first  of" 
all,  to  be  determined. 

When  the  E-oman  Catholics  of  our  day  tell  us  that  there  are 
seven,  they  do  so  with  so  much  confidence  that  one  could  hardly 
think  it  possible  that  this  was  still  an  open  question  three  cen- 
turies ago.  They  themselves,  for  the  most  part,  suspect  this  less 
than  any  one.  They  have  not  the  most  distant  idea  that  it  has 
not  been  recognised  and  taught  in  their  Church  since  its  founda- 
tion, and  it  is  with  the  most  perfect  good  faith  that  they  ask  how 
any  man  can  be  bold  enough  to  attack  that  venerated  number. 

True  it  is,  that  the  number  seven  had  then  for  a  long  time 
been  generally  acknowledged.  But  although  admitted  at  the 
council  of  Florence,  this  was  still  an  opinion  only,  not  a  dogma  ; 
and  when  it  was  seriously  proposed  to  make  it  a  dogma,  the  sub- 
ject was  beset  with  uncertainties. 

First  of  all,  it  was  found  impossible  to  justify  by  Scripture, 
not  only  the  number  seven,  but  the  existence  even  of  such  or 
such  an  one  of  the  seven.  This  we  shall  have  occasion  to  dem- 
onstrate ere  long. 

In  the  second  place — a  still  more  serious  matter  for  the  Ro- 
man divines — it  was  found  impossible  to  discover  anything  at 
all  settled  among  the  Fathers  on  this  point.  In  Augustine,  for 
example,  the  word  sacrament  is  sometimes  used  in  the  sense  of 
sacred  thing,  and  applied  to  all  the  Church's  ceremonies;  some- 
times it  is  restricted,^  as  among  Protestants,  to  baptism  and  the 
Lord's  supper.  St.  Ambrose,  under  the  general  title,  De  Sacra- 
nientis,  speaks  also  of  those  two  only.  This  number,  two,  occurs, 
once  and  again,  even  in  the  waitings  of  St.  Thomas  (Aquinas).-^ 
"  As  Eve,"  he  says,  "  was  taken  from  Adam's  side,  so  from  the 
pierced  side  of  Jesus  Christ  have  proceeded  the  two  sacraments 
that  form  the  Church  ;"  that  is  to  say,  according  to  the  explana- 
tion which  he  adds.  Baptism  represented  by  the  water,  and  the 
Supper  represented  by  the  blood.  In  St.  Bernard  also,  the  mean- 
ing of  the  word  is  so  far  from,  fixed,  that  we  see  it  applied  to  the 
act  known  in  the  Roman  Church  under  the  Xqith  foot-washing. 

'   Christian  Doctrine,  iii.  0.  -  Questions  62,  o;  G6,  3. 


/ 


y 


152  HISTORY    OF   THE   COUNCIL    OF   TRENT.  Book  II. 

After  this  we  should  hke  to  know  how  the  Roman  Catechisna 
could  venture  to  say  that  the  number  seven  has  come  ''from 
the  tradition  of  the  Father sT^ 

That  same  catechism  might,  on  this  subject,  furnish  us  with 
a  curious  specimen  of  exegesis.  "  The  Latin  Fathers,"  it  tells 
us,  "  have  employed  this  word  in  the  same  meaning  with  that  of 
mystery^  as  employed  by  the  Greeks.  It  is  thus  that  St.  Paul 
employs  it  in  those  words  (Eph.  i.) :  '  Having  onade  hnoivn 
unto  us  the  sacrament  of  Ids  tcill ;'  and  in  these  (1  Tim.  iii.), 
'  Great  is  the  sacrament  of  godliness.'''  And  the  explanation 
continues.  Now,  in  the  Greek  text  the  word  is  mystery.  Thus, 
the  catechism  begins  by  putting  sacrament  for  mystery,  and 
reasons,  then,  as  if  St.  Paul  had  Avritten  sacrame^it.  It  is  true 
that  it  is  the  Yulgate  that  has  made  the  change,  and,  of  course, 
after  that,  all  error  is  impossible. 

The  best  proof  of  the  vagueness  and  uncertainty  that  still  pre- 
vailed on  the  subject,  is  to  be  seen  in  the  discussions  that  took 
place.  Several  divines  proposed  that  the  simple  enumeration 
of  the  sacraments  should  be  thought  enough,  without  saying 
whether  they  were  seven,  or  naore,  or  fewer.  They  remarked, 
that  by  following  any  other  course,  the  council  could  hardly 
dispense  with  defining  what  was  meant  by  the  general  term 
sacrament,  and  this  would  be  found  a  very  knotty  undertaking 
as  soon  as  two  or  at  the  most  three  were  admitted.  In  fact,  if 
the  definition  be  made  wide  enough  to  comprise  things  so  dif- 
ferent as  marriage  and  holy  orders,  it  is  impossible  that  it  should 
not  comprise  also  things  which  the  Church  does  not  call  sacra- 
ments, as,  for  example,  monastic  vows.  The  schoolmen  had 
tried  to  provide  for  this.  The  sacraments,  they  said,  confer 
grace  ex  opere  operato  ;  the  vow^s  confer  it  e.v  ojoere  operantis? 
A  poor  subtlety,  manifestly  contrived  to  meet  the  emergency,  by 
justifying  the  exclusion  of  the  vows  and  the  number  seven,  but 
which  could  n*.  stand  for  a  moment  before  evident  reason  and 
common  sense. 

Here,  then,  lay  the  difficulty  which  frightened  many  of  the 
divines.  But  among  these,  as  well  as  among  the  bishops,  there 
were  many  who  longed  to  see  the  matter  set  at  rest.  They  held 
the  dignity  of  the  Church  and  of  the  council  to  be  interested  in 
it ;  nor  were  they  mistaken.  If  there  were  really  seven  sacra- 
ments, it  was  very  strange  that  the  Church  should  have  allowed 
fifteen  centuries  to  pass  without  teaching  this  to  the  faithful. 
They  behoved,  therefore,  to  bring  the  matter  to  a  conclusion. 
Next,  had  they  not  already  the  seven  cardinal  virtues,  the  seven 

*  Patrum  traditione  ad  nos  pervenit. 

^  By  the  work  done — By  the  "work  of  liim  Avho  <loo'-.  it. 


Chap.  IV.  1547.     REASONS  ADDUCED  FOR  THE  NUMBER  SEVEN.         153 

capital  sins,  the  seven  days  of  the  week,  the  seven  planets,  the 
seven  candlesticks  of  the  Apocalypse,  which  had  been  so  felici- 
tously taken  advantage  of  in  the  golden  bull,  for  fixing  at  seven 
the  number  of  the  electors  in  the  empire — without  reckoning 
the  mysterious  anciently  acknowledged  excellence  of  that  num- 
ber in  itself?  "Being  certain,"  says  Pallavicini,'  "that  God 
is  an  infinite  wisdom,  that  no  rea.son,  no  fitness,  however  subtle, 
can  present  itself  to  us  before  having  first  presented  itself  to  him, 
we  need  be  under  no  apprehension,  that  in  the  interpretation  of 
his  works  and  of  his  words,  it  may  be  with  us,  as  it  was  with 
Plutarch,  when  he  found  in  Homer's  verses  so  many  mysterious 
meanings  of  which  that  author  had  never  dreamt."  It  is  evi- 
dent, then,  according  to  this  grave  historian,  that  in  conceiving 
the  most  uncouth  idea,  a  man  may  always  say  to  himself,  "  God 
has  had  it  before  it  suggested  itself  to  me."  This  is  truly  a 
novel  way  of  understanding  the  injiiiite  wisdom  of  God.  Te- 
merity for  temerity,  we  should  prefer  that  of  Luther  when  he 
said,  with  unaflected  simplicity,  "  We  doctors  say  such  subtle 
things,  that  God  himself  is  astonished  at  them  !" 

It  was  not  thought  fit,  however,  to  insert  any  of  these  fine 
reasons  in  the  decree  ;  and  as  there  were  no  others  for  holding  to 
the  number  seven,  none  were  inserted  at  all.  "If  any  one  shall 
maintain  that  there  are  more  or  fewer  than  seven  sacraments, 
let  him  be  anathema. "^  The  Roman  Catechism  is  less  laconic. 
"  Seven  things,"  it  says,  "  are  necessary  to  man  in  order  to  his 
living  and  preserving  life.  He  must  be  born,  he  must  grow, 
he  must  take  food,  he  must  use  remedies  for  the  recovery  of  his 
health  when  he  has  lost  it,  he  must  regain  his  strength  when 
his  energies  are  weakened,  he  must  have  magistrates  to  govern 
him,  he  must  by  means  of  lawful  children  perpetuate  the  human 
race.  All  these  having  corresponding  points  in  the  life  by  which 
the  soul  lives  to  God,  one  may  easily  deduce  from  them  what 
ought  to  be  the  number  of  the  sacraments.  By  baptism,  we  are 
born  anew  in  Jesus  Christ ;  by  confirmation,  divine  grace  makes 
us  grow  and  strengthens  us ;  by  the  Eucharist,  our  soul  is  fed 
and  sustained  ;  by  penance,  we  are  cured  of  the  plagues  caused 
by  sin  in  our  souls,"  &:c.  Mark  that  this  odd  catalogue  has  not 
even  the  merit  of  being  complete,  and  it  is  the  only  merit  that 
anything  so  extremely  silly  can  have.  Sleep  is  far  more  univer- 
sally necessary  to  life  than  the  use  of  cordials  or  of  remedies. 
What  sacrament  shall  be  made  to  correspond  with  sleep  ?  And 
yet  it  is  not  as  a  figure  of  rhetoric  that  the  catechism  employs, 

^  Book  ix.  ch.  iv. 

^  Si  quis  dixerit  sacramenta  esse  plura  vel  pauciora  qiiam  septem 
....  anathema  sit. 

G* 


154  HISTORY   OF   THE   COUNCIL  OF   TRENT.  Book  II. 

and  counsels  the  employment  of  such  reasoning.  It  gives  it  as 
a  good  reason;^  and  the  French  translation  of  1844  is  still  more 
expUcit,  "  In  order  to  shew  the  faithful  that  there  are  seven 
sacraments,  neither  more  nor  less,  pastors  may  employ  this  rea- 
soning, luhich  is  very  fit  for  convincing  them  of  it''  We  may 
be  allowed  to  suppose,  that  before  reasonable  people,  they,  on 
the  contrary,  take  good  care  not  to  employ  it. 

Here,  then,  we  have  seven  sacraments,  and  now  who  has  in- 
stituted them  ? 

To  say  that  such  or  such  an  one  was  instituted  by  Jesus 
Christ,  would  be  to  admit  that  others  were  not  instituted  by 
him,  and  by  doing  so,  to  assign  to  them  an  inferior  rank.  "What 
was  to  be  done  ?  Nothing  more  simple  :  they  must  all  be  at- 
tributed to  Jesus  Christ. 

This  was  to  trifle  with  tradition  quite  as  much  as  with  Scrip- 
ture. Hitherto,  in  fact,  nothing  but  baptism  and  the  supper  had 
been  regarded  universally  as  instituted  by  the  Saviour.  For 
all  the  rest,  people  had  seldom  gone  farther  than  the  Apostles. 
Many  Roman  Catholics,  and  those  among  the  best,  did  not  even 
go  so  far,  at  least  for  one  or  two  of  them  ;  many  left  marriage 
expressly  out,  not  that  they  denied  it  a  place  among  the  sacra- 
ments, but  because  it  seemed  by  no  means  natural  to  attribute 
to  Jesus  Christ,  what  he  spoke  of  so  often  without  anywise  at- 
tributing it  to  himself  All  this  was  said  ;  but  it  was  one  of 
those  moments  with  the  council  when  the  wind  of  omnipotence 
seemed  to  have  turned  the  heads  of  all  the  members.  They 
would  have  been  terrified  at  the  least  exception,  as  it  might  ap- 
pear to  be  a  triumph  conceded  to  the  Lutherans.  They  gave 
no  reasons,  and  entered  into  no  details  :  anathema  to  whosoever 
should  deny  that  all  the  sacraments  were  instituted  by  Jesus 
Christ ;  and  it  was  even  with  this  that  the  decree  was  to  open, 
"  Si  quis  dixerit  sacramenta  non  fuisse  omnia  a  Christo  mstituta 
— anathema  sit." 

In  spite  of  the  anathema,  it  was  found  necessary  to  find  some 
means  of  mitigating  a  little  the  palpable  falseness  of  the  decree. 
Even  as  early  as  in  the  oath  of  the  bishops,  drawn  up  by  Pius  IV. 
immediately  after  the  close  of  the  council,  the  word  all  is  left  out. 
"  I  acknowledge  that  there  are  seven  sacraments,  instituted  by 
Jesus  Christ."  The  sense  is  the  same,  but  already  the  assertion 
is  a  httle  less  formal.  From  this  time  forth  it  has  been  inter- 
preted generally  by  saying,  that  the  sacraments  were  all,  indeed, 
instituted  by  Jesus  Christ,  but  some  immediately,  that  is  to  say, 
from  his  own  mouth,  the  rest  mediately,  that  is  to  say,  by  the 
Apostles  or  by  the  Church,  under  an  inspiration  derived  from 

^   Probabilis  ratio. 


Chap.  IV.  1547.  NECESSITY   OF    THE    SACRAMENTS.  165 

him.  11"  tliis  is  not  more  true,  it  is  assuredly  more  reasonable  ; 
what  is  certain  is,  that  it  is  not  in  the  decree,  and  that  if  the 
council,  foreseeing  this  interpretation,  had  wished,  on  the  con- 
trary, to  proscribe  it,  it  could  not  have  expressed  itself  more 
clearly  than  it  has  (ione.  Yet  listen  to  what  Bossuct  says, 
"  The  divine  institution  of  the  Sacraments  appears  in  the  Scrip- 
ture, either  by  the  express  words  of  Jesus  Christ  who  established 
them,  or  by  the  grace  which,  according  to  the  same  Scripture,  is 
attached  to  them,  and  which  necessarily  marks  an  order  from 
God."i  After  this,  if  Claude  and  Juricu  were  wrong  in  accus- 
ing Bossuet  of  having  made  the  decrees  of  Trent  suit  his  own 
purposes,  we  must  give  up  insisting  that  black  and  white  are 
not  the  same  colour.  To  bring  this  subject  to  a  close,  Ave  have 
still  one  word,  one  only  word  to  say,  but  we  defy  any  man  to 
gainsay  it ;  it  is  this,  that  a  reader  altogether  ignorant  as  yet  of 
Christian  doctrines,  and  who  should  look  for  them  in  the  decrees 
of  the  council,  never  could  avoid  the  conclusion,  and  would  be- 
lieve without  any  kind  of  hesitation,  that  all  the  sacraments 
were  positively  instituted  by  Jesus  Christ — being  what  Bossuet 
and  what  all  the  Roman  Catholic  doctors  of  the  present  day 
admit  to  be  false. 

As  it  was  thought  a  matter  of  principal  importance  to  give 
expression  to  nothing  but  absolute  decisions,  where  the  authority 
of  the  form  might  supplement  whatever  was  wanting  in  the 
principle,  the  council  were  sufficiently  embarrassed  at  first  on 
the  great  question  of  the  use  of  the  sacraments,  and,  in  particular, 
of  their  necessity.  Not  that  too  many  bishops  were  not  quite 
ready  to  say,  without  disquieting  themselves  about  reasons  or 
consequences,  that  the  sacraments  are  necessary  ;  but  it  was  re- 
plied that  there  is  none  of  them  that  is  so  in  the  same  manner 
with  the  rest.  Baptism  had  been  declared  indispensable  to  sal- 
vation ;  and  whatever  opinion  might  be  formed  of  the  excellence 
of  the  others,  it  was  evidently  the  only  one  of  which  this  could 
be  thought.  An  infant  dying  immediately  after  baptism,  a 
Christian  living  far  from  any  church,  in  a  desert  island,  or  among 
heathens,  never  had  been  regarded  as  lost,  even  although  they 
had  never  participated  in  six  out  of  the  seven  sacraments.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  Protestants  had  never  maintained  that  the 
sacraments  which  they  admitted,  were  not  necessary  in  the  sense 
of  there  being  no  impropriety  in  abolishing  them  ;  they  only 
maintained  that  they  were  not  the  necessary  and  indispensable 
channels  of  saving  grace.  But  Luther  had  said,  "  The  sacra- 
ments are  not  iiecessary ;''  and  this  was  enough  for  the  council 
to  think  itself  obliged  to  say  that  they  are  necessary.  Notwith- 
'  Expedition  de  \sx  foi  catholique.  oh.  ix. 


156  HISTORY    OF   THE    COUNCIL   OF    TRENT.  Book  II. 

standing  the  remonstrances  of  the  most  sensible  of  the  divines, 
the  article  passed.  "  Anathema  to  whosoever  shall  maintain 
that  the  sacraments  are  not  necessary,  hut  su^erfiiwusy^  A 
mere  play  upon  words.  Betwixt  indispensable  and  superfluous 
there  is  a  middle  point,  which  the  Protestants  have  constantly 
maintained.  On  whom  and  on  what,  then,  did  this  anathema 
fall  ?  Besides,  can  it  be  logically  correct  to  range  under  the 
same  epithet,  things  that  receive  it  in  a  different  sense  ?  The 
sacraments  are  necessary,  says  the  decree.  But  necessary  ap- 
plied to  baptism,  and  necessary  applied  to  the  supper,  and  to 
marriage,  are,  in  reahty,  two  different  words.  The  decree  adds, 
that  "  all  are  not  necessary  to  all  men;'"^  an  elucidation  which 
is  only  an  additional  obscurity.  If  necessary,  in  that  part  of  the 
phrase,  means  'hidispensable,  it  ought  not  to  have  been  said  that 
"  all  are  not  necessary  to  all,"  but  that  one  alone,  baptism,  is 
universally  necessary.  If  it  be  something  else  than  indispens- 
able, still  baptism  ought  to  have  been  mentioned  apart,  and  the 
assertion,  that  "  all  are  not  necessary  to  all,"  could  apply  only 
to  the  other  six.  To  get  rid  of  these  uncertainties,  it  has  been 
suggested  that  the  decree  should  be  understood  as  merely  teach- 
ing, "  that  it  is  necessary  there  should  be  sacraments."  Strictly 
speaking,  this  is  not  in  opposition  with  the  text ;  but  the  simpler 
this  last  proposition,  the  more  must  it  be  admitted  that  the  text 
is  confused.  But  is  even  this  proposition  clear  ?  It  is  suscep- 
tible of  two  meanings.  Do  you  mean  to  say  that  it  is  good, 
useful,  excellent,  that  there  should  be  sacraments  ?  The  Prot- 
estants have  never  said  the  contrar}\  Mean  you  to  say  that 
we  must  absolutely  have  them?  Then,  what  know  you  of 
that  ?  Who  has  told  you  that  God  may  not  save  by  quite  other 
means  ?  And  what  do  you  make  of  so  many  passages  of  Scrip- 
ture, in  which  salvation  is  promised  either  to  faith  or  to  works 
emanating  from  faith,  without  any  mention  of  the  sacraments  ? 
In  the  hypothesis  of  their  absolute  necessity,  the  omission  is 
inexplicable. 

Still  further  to  augment  this  indistinctness,  there  has  been 
added  an  old  scholastical  distinction  between  necessity  of  fact 
and  necessity  of  intention.^  Thus,  for  example,  extreme  unction 
is  to  be  held  as  necessary,  not  in  this  sense,  that  it  must  abso- 
lutely have  been  received  in  order  to  a  man's  dying  in  a  state  of 
grace,  but  in  this  sense,  that  he  must  have  desired  it.  And  if 
Eome  have  died  in  a  state  of  grace  without  having  desired  it,  with- 

^  Si  qiiis  dixerit  sacramenta  non  esse  ad  salutem  necessaria  sed  su- 
perflua.  .  .  .  anathema  sit. 

2  Licet  omnia  singulis  necessaria  non  sint. 
^  Si  quis  dixerit  sine  eis  aiit  eonim  voto. 


Chap.  IV.  1547.         OPERATION   OF   THE    SACRAMENTS.  157 

out  even  having  thought  of  it,  w^ithout  having  so  much  as  ever 
heard  it  mentioned,  it  vi^as  because  they  were  in  such  a  state  of 
mind  that  they  vi^ould  have  desired  it  had  they  know^n  of  it,  or 
had  they  thought  of  it.  Reduced  to  such  proportions,  the  ne- 
cessity of  the  sacraments  ends  at  last  in  hecoming  something 
altogether  reasonable  ;  but  then  all  the  more  unreasonable  is  it, 
to  have  called  that  necessary  which  turns  out  to  be  so  lar  from 
necessary.  It  is,  besides,  inconsistent  with  the  absolute  neces- 
sity of  baptism.  Those  infants  who  have  not  the  happiness  to 
receive  it  would  most  certainly  desire  it,  if  they  knew  of  it.  If, 
then,  this  last  proposition  is  well  founded,  why  exclude  them 
from  heaven  only  because  of  their  not  having  received  it  ?  And 
if  that  sacrament  be  an  exception,  why  does  the  council  con- 
tinue to  speak  of  all  of  them  at  once  ? 

These  are  criticisms  that  may  be  made  by  anybody.  Although 
we  were  to  receive  this  decree  as  true,  it  strikes  us  that  still  we 
should  find  it  singularly  ill  drawn  up  ;  the  more  we  cleaved  to 
its  doctrines,  the  more  annoyed  should  we  be  at  .so  faulty 
an  exposition  of  them.  Many  other  decrees  are  in  this  case. 
We  shall  give  here  and  there  some  specimens  of  such. 

It  had  yet  to  be  decided,  in  fine,  how  the  sacraments  take 
effect.  Are  they  the  occasions  of  grace  or  the  causes  of  grace  ? 
Or,  have  they  any  virtue  independent  of  the  sentiments  of  the 
recipient  ? 

Common  sense  says,  no  ;  so  also  does  the  Scripture.  This  we 
shall  ere  long  demonstrate  with  respect  to  each  of  them.  Un- 
fortunately, after  what  had  been  already  voted  on  the  influence 
of  baptism,  it  was  hardly  any  longer  possible  to  abide  by  either 
common  sense  or  Scripture.  If  baptism  works  such  a  marvellous 
result  upon  a  babe,  who  can  have  no  idea  of  what  it  is,  nor  can 
in  any  way  accept  it,  it  is,  in  fact,  not  easy  to  admit  that  the 
other  sacraments  have  not,  of  themselves,  by  the  fact  of  their 
having  been  received,  opeix  operato,  any  influence  whatever. 
If  the  babe  has  been  saved  by  a  ceremony  in  which  it  has  not 
taken,  and  could  not  take,  any  part  whatever,  wherefore  should 
the  dying  and  unconscious  invalid  not  be  saved  by  a  ceremony 
to  which  he  remains  a  stranger  ?  It  is  thus  that  one  error 
leads  on  to  another.  What  had  been  pronounced  to  hold  true 
with  respect  to  an  infant,  had  to  be  repeated  with  respect  to  the 
sacraments  in  general.  They  were  proclaimed,  therefore,  to  be 
causes  of  grace.  * 

And  now,  how  were  they  to  be  said  to  be  so  ?  This  was 
another  question  which  could  not  be  forgotten.  Upon  this  there 
flared  up  among  the  divines  one  of  the  fiercest  disputes  that  the 
council  had  yet  witnessed.     Some  maintained  that  the  sacra- 


158  HISTORY   OF   THE   COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  II. 

ments  are  only  physical  and  instrumental  causes  of  grace,  which 
amounted  to  this,  for  example,  that  the  good  effects  of  com- 
munion in  a  soul  are  essentially  connected  with  the  act  itself 
of  receiving  and  swallowing  a  wafer.  The  rest,  more  reason- 
able, said,  that  a  spiritual  effect  cannot  depend  on  a  physical 
cause  ;  that  hence  the  efficacy  of  the  sacraments  arises  from 
this,  that  God  has  engaged  to  operate  on  the  soul  within,  ever\^ 
time  that  such  or  such  a  material  act  shall  have  taken  place 
without.  The  latter,  not  without  reason,  were  charged  with 
being  Lutherans ;  the  former  were  charged  by  the  Lutherans 
with  teaching  an  absurdity  ;  and  as  for  us,  we  are  compelled  to 
add,  that  this  absurdity  is  the  thing  that  best  agrees  with  the 
totality  of  Roman  doctrines  and  usages.  With  Roman  doctrines, 
as  a  whole,  we  say,  for  one  does  not  see  to  what,  if  not  to  this, 
we  are  led  by  the  eighth  canon,  which  rans  thus  :  "  If  any  one 
says  that  the  sacraments  do  not  confer  grace  of  themselves 
ex  opere  operato — let  him  be  anathema. "^  With  the  Roman 
usages,  as  a  whole,  we  further  say — for  the  adoration  of  the  wa- 
fer, the  character  so  profoundly  sacred  attributed  to  the  chrism, 
endless  minute  ceremonies  employed  in  the  administration  of  the 
sacraments,  everything  in  fine  sanctions  the  belief,  whatever 
attempts  there  may  have  been  at  times  to  deny  it — that  the 
Roman  Church  ascribes,  or  allows  its  members  to  ascribe,  a 
certain  direct  action  on  the  human  soul  to  thinsfs  that  are  alto- 
gether  and  purely  material. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  so  keen  was  the  contention,  that  the  legates 
complained  to  the  chiefs  of  the  monastic  orders,  of  the  want  of 
moderation  exhibited  by  their  members  ;  they  even  wrote  to  the 
pope  that  something  must  be  done  in  order  to  keep  them  down. 
But  how  ?  They  could  not  be  dispensed  with  ;  and  it  cannot 
be  wondered  at  that,  on  the  strength  of  their  seeing  this,  they 
permitted  themselves,  from  time  to  time,  to  fancy  that  they  were 
not  only  the  assessors  of  a  council,  but  a  council  itself. 

After  divers  discussions  more  or  less  futile,  the  council  pro- 
ceeded to  ask,  up  to  what  point  is  the  intention  of  the  priest 
necessary  to  the  validity  of  the  sacrament  which  he  has  admin- 
istered ?  "  The  smallest  mistake,  even  thousfh  made  involun- 
tarily,"  a  pope  had  said,^  "  nullifies  the  whole  act."  The  coun- 
cil of  Florence  had  pronounced  the  same  opinion,  and  it  was  a 
link  which  people  durst  not  break  ;  but  they  took  fright  at  the 
consequences.  They  were,  indeed,  frightful.  Let  an  infidel,  or 
a  dreamy  priest,  baptize  a  child  without  having  seriously  the 

^  Si  quis  dixerit  per  ipsa  iiovse  legis  sacramenta  ex  opere  operato  non 
conferre  gratiam  .  .  .  anathema  sit. 
*  Innocent  III.,  Ep.  ix. 


Ciixr.  lY.  1517.     NECESSITY    OF    INTENTION.— CONSEl^UKNCES.         l^jQ 

idea  of  baptiziiijT  it,  ihat  child,  if  it  die,  is  lost ;  let  a  Lislioj)  or- 
dain a  priest,  \Yithoiit  having  actually  and  formally,  from  ab.scncc 
of  mind  or  any  other  cause,  the  idea  of  conferring  the  priesthood, 
and  behold  we  have  a  priest  who  is  not  a  priest,  and  those  whom 
he  shall  baptize,  marry,  or  absolve, ♦will  not  be  baptized,  married, 
or  absolved.  The  pope  himself,  without  suspecting  it,  might 
have  been  ordained  in  this  manner ;  and  as  it  is  from  him  that 
everything  flows,  all  the  bishops  of  the  Church  might  some  day 
find  themselves  to  be  false  bishofis,  and  all  the  priests  false 
priests,  without  their  being  any  possibility  of  restoring  the  broken 
linlv. 

Pallavicini  begins  with  treating  all  these  suppositions,  which 
Catharini  had  enlarged  upon  with  great  warmth,  as  "  marvellous 
tragedies  ;"  and  when  reproduced  by  Sarpi,  they  become  no  bet- 
ter, always  according  to  the  cardinal  historian,  than  "  specious 
tricks."  "There  is  nothing  new,"  says  he,  "in  these  argu- 
ments." Have  they  not  been  refuted  a  hundred  times  after  the 
decree  of  Florence  ?  He  makes  a  jest  of  Catharini ''  painting  in 
affecting  terms  the  anxiety  of  a  father  who  having  a  child  in  the 
agonies  of  death,  should  say  that  the  poor  child  has  not  been 
baptized,  perhaps,  and  is  about  to  be  excluded  from  heaven." 
And  yet  the  historian  comes  at  last  to  admit  that  that  anxiety  is 
perfectly  justifiable  "As  for  the  rest,"  says  he,  "there  is  no- 
thing repugnant  in  the  idea  that  no  person  in  particular,  after 
all  possible  researches,  can  come  to  be  perfectly  sure  of  his  bap- 
tism. Nobody  can  complain  that  he  suffers  this  evil  without 
having  deserved  it.  God,  by  a  goodness  purely  arbitrary,  deliv- 
ers the  one  without  delivering  the  other."  Admirable  reasoning  ; 
but  behold,  we  are  brought  at  once  by  it  to  the  very  predestina- 
tion which  has  been  made  such  a  matter  of  reproach  against  Cal- 
vin ;  and  while  Calvin  makes  it  at  least  depend  solely  on  the  will 
of  God,  here  we  have  it  made  to  depend  on  the  inattention  of  a 
priest. 

This  was  remarked  by  Catharini.  jSTo  reply  vras  made.  The 
votes  were  taken.  The  decree  of  Florence  was  maintained  ; 
there  was  only  a  slight  softening  of  the  terms,  but,- after  alb 
without  any  change  in  the  substance.  "  If  any  one  say  that 
the  intention,  that,  at  least,  of  doing  what  the  Church  does,  ir 
not  required  in  the  priest — let  him  be  anathema."  This  is  not 
clear  ;  but  we  should  in  vain  take  it  in  the  widest  possible 
meaning,  and  say,  for  example,  that  baptism  is  valid,  provided 
that  the  priest,  in  administering  it,  has  not  the  formal  intention 
of  makino-  it  null — not  the  less  will  there  remain  with  the 
priest  the  infernal  power  of  excluding  from  heaven  an  infant 
whom  he  makes  a  show  of  baptizing.     From  the  moment  you 


160  HISTORY   OF   THE    COUNCIL   OF    TRENT.  Book  H. 

shall  admit  the  very  smallest  possibility  that  God  may  save  that 
child — and  Pallaviciiii  himself  is  compelled  to  say  that  the  thing- 
is  not  impossible — you  would  upset  the  decree.  "With  or  with- 
out reservations,  it  is  of  little  consequence  :  you  admit  that  the 
intention  is  not  indispensable^ 

But,  it  will  be  said,  what  then  ought  the  council  to  have 
done  ?  Ought  it  to  have  said,  that  the  intention  is  useless  ? 
That  certain  movements  of  the  hands  and  lips  suffice  for  the 
baptism  of  a  child,  for  the  ordination  of  a  priest,  for  bringing 
Jesus  Christ  from  heaven  and  incarnating  him  in  a  wafer  ?  It 
is  then,  indeed,  that  the  cry  of  formalism  might  be  raised  I  No 
doubt,  but  why  pronounce  at  all  ?  Say  that  the  intention  is 
necessary,  and  you  open  an  abyss  of  improbabilities ;  say  that 
it  is  not  necessary,  and  you  land  yourself  in  gross  formalism. 
There  might  readily  have  been  found  a  rational  solution,  and  it 
was  that  which  Luther  had  had  in  view  when  he  denied  the 
necessity  of  intention  on  the  part  of  the  priest ;  but  this  the 
council  did  not  wish,  and  could  not  wish  to  adopt.  It  would 
have  been,  as  we  have  already  remarked,  to  connect  the  effect 
of  the  sacrament,  not  with  the  intention  of  him  who  administers 
it,  but  with  the  disposition  of  mind  in  the  person  receiving  it. 
Then,  of  what  consequence  is  it  how,  or  by  whom,  you  have 
been  baptized  ?  To  you,  and  to  you  alone,  it  pertains  to  ratify 
your  baptism  by  accepting  the  engagements  taken  for  you ;  for, 
as  St.  Paul  says,  the  baptism  that  saves  "  is  the  engagement 
of  a  good  conscience  before  God."  From  the  hands  of  a  worth- 
less priest  there  is  nothing  to  prevent  your  having  been  legiti- 
mately sealed  with  the  seal  of  divine  grace  ;  from  the  hands  of 
an  unbeliever  who,  in  giving  you  the  bread  of  angels,  shall 
have  made  a  jest  both  of  God  and  of  you,  you  may  have  com- 
municated, and  that  in  all  holmess.  Of  course  the  priest  would 
be  a  miserable  wretch,  were  he  to  tliink  himself  authorized  on 
that  account  to  administer  the  sacraments  without  intention  and 
without  piety  ;  but  not  the  less  is  it  the  only  idea  which  does 
no  offence  to  reason,  to  justice,  and  to  the  general  character  of  a 
worship  "  in  spirit  and  in  truth." 

But  why  should  we  seek  to  justify  our  criticisms?  The 
Roman  Church  herself  has  sufficiently  justified  them  by  the 
changes  she  has  made,  or  permitted  to  be  made,  in  this  decree. 
Hardly  a  year  after  its  publication,  Catharini  wrote  a  book,  in 
which  he  ventured  to  affirm  that  the  council  had  voted  according 
to  his  view.  He  was  exclaimed  against,  but  was  not  condemned. 
"  I  think,"  says  Pallavicini,  "  that  his  view  is  a  false  one,  hut 
has  oiot  been  expressly  condemned  by  the  decree  ;  and  therefore 
he  could  legitimately  maintain  that  it  was  not  opposed  to  the 


Chap.  IV.  1M7.  SACRAMENT   OF    BAPTISM.  101 

council."  Since  that,  what  do  avc  find  lias  been  done  ?  In  the 
article  of  the  sacraments  in  general,  the  Roman  Catechism 
admits  fully,  as  the  council  had  done,  the  necessity  of  the  inten- 
tion, but  in  the  details  it  abandons  it.  Thus,  in  speaking  of  the 
Eucharist,  "  It  will  be  recollected,"  it  says,  "  as  we  have  said 
above,  that  the  sacraments  may  be  legitimately  administered  by 
wicked  priests,  provided  the  things  necessary  to  the  consumma- 
tion of  the  act  be  exactly  observed ;"  and  the  word  which  we 
translate  by  exactly,  rife,  is  hardly  ever  used  in  speaking  of 
anything  but  exactness  in  forms.  In  fact,  saving  the  circum- 
locutions necessary  for  saving  the  council's  honour,  the  non- 
necessity of  the  intention  ended  at  last  with  being  universally 
taught.  The  Tridentine  anathema  has  been  transformed  by 
little  and  little  into  mere  exhortations  on  the  seriousness  which 
ought  to  be  felt  in  the  administration  of  the  sacraments.  This 
is  most  reasonable,  it  is  most  Christian — but  it  is  no  longer  the 
decree. 

Let  us  notice,  on  this  subject,  a  striking  difference  between 
the  modifications  that  time  has  introduced  into  the  council's  de- 
cisions. Modifications  of  dogma — these  have,  for  the  most  part, 
been  made  in  a  reasonable  and  Christian  sense  ;  but  in  matters 
of  practice,  it  is  the  council,  on  the  contrary,  as  we  shall  see, 
that  was  more  reasonable  and  more  Christian  than  the  Church. 
In  both  cases  we  might  ask,  what  becomes  of  the  authority  of 
the  supreme  code  written  at  Trent  ? 

After  having  thus  regulated  what  bore  upon  the  seven  sacra- 
ments in  general,  the  council  applied  itself  to  its  next  duty — 
that  of  examining  them  apart,  beginning  with  baptism.  Who 
could  have  imagined  that  it  would  be  fifteen  years  before  they 
reached  the  last  of  them  ? 

Several  of  the  points  relating  to  baptism  had  been  previously 
decided  in  the  question  of  original  sin ;  a  few  only  remained, 
and  on  these  there  was  little  difficulty  in  coming  to  an  agree- 
ment. One  alone  occupied  the  council  some  little  time.  Is  the 
baptism  of  heretics  a  true  baptism  ?  May  their  re-baptism  be 
dispensed  wdth  when  they  become  Catholics  ? 

For  a  considerable  time  E-omanists  had  been  agreed  in  con- 
sidering  their  baptism  as  valid,  and  in  making  no  difierence 
amongst  them  in  this  respect ;  but  it  coidd  not  be  forgotten  that 
the  time  had  been  when  the  Church  shewed  herself  much  less 
liberal.  At  several  epochs  there  had  seemed  to  be  a  disposition 
rather  to  re-baptize  all  heretics,  without  exception.  The  Coun- 
cils of  Nice  and  Constantinople  having  thought  that  they  ought 
to  specify  those  who  should  be  re-baptized,  and  those  \A'ho  might 
not  be  so,  some  bishops  made  propositions  to  that  effect,  but  the 


162  HISTORY   OF  THE   COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  H. 

majority  saw  that  tliey  could  never  bring  the  matter  to  a  bear- 
ing. So  it  was  decided  that  a  sanction  should  be  given  to  the 
opinion  generally  received  ;  only  to  avoid  the  appearance  of  con- 
travening former  decisions  and  former  usages,  they  confined  them- 
selves to  declaring  the  validity  of  every  baptism  administered 
"  in  the  name  of  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  icith 
the  intention  of  doing  what  the  Church  does.''^  But  in  what 
did  this  intention  consist  ?  The  decree  does  not  say.  Had  it 
told  us,  it  would  still  have  had  to  say,  up  to  what  point  there 
must  be  this  intention,  for  it  is  clear  that  all  men  cannot  have  it 
in  the  same  degree,  or  in  the  same  way.  The  Roman  Catechism 
is  still  more  liberal.  "  Every  body  may  baptize,  men  or  women, 
whatever  be  their  sect  or  profession,  Jews,  pagans,  or  heretics. "^ 
How  Jews  and  pagans  can  have,  in  any  degree  whatever,  the 
intention  of  doing,  when  baptizing,  what  the  Church  does,  it  is 
not  easy  to  comprehend  ;  and  one  may  very  well  be  excused  for 
seeing  here  the  abandonment  of  the  necessity  of  intention.  Next, 
how  admirable  this  gradation  I — Jews,  pagans,  heretics.  Pro- 
testant minister,  know  that  you  are  less  fit  to  baptize  than  a 
rabbin  or  a  brahmin. 

This  decree  ends  at  last  in  committing  the  matter  to  the 
caprice  of  bishops,  and  often  of  mere  priests.  When  the  case  is 
that  of  a  Protestant  who,  on  being  perverted  into  E-oman  Catho- 
licism, is  not  disposed  to  make  a  public  spectacle  of  himself,  any 
such  proposal  as  that  he  should  be  baptized  again  would  be 
studiously  avoided  ;  but  when  notoriety  is  thought  desirable, 
and  the  pervert  lends  himself  to  that  object,  it  is  thought  impos- 
sible to  refuse.  It  is  then  made  the  first  step  in  the  proceedings. 
But  as  baptism,  according  to  another  article  of  the  decree,  stamps 
an  indelible  impression  on  the  soul,  and  cannot  without  sacrilege 
be  received  twice,  "  If  thou  art  baptized,"  says  the  priest  in 
these  cases,  "  I  baptize  thee  not ;  if  thou  art  not  baptized,  I 
baptize  thee." 

What  finally  remained  to  be  done,  was  so  to  contrive,  that  in 
acknowledging  the  validity  of  the  baptism  of  heretics,  there 
should  be  no  appearance  of  admitting  the  uselessness  of  the  ac- 
cessory ceremonies,^  of  which  they  had  disencumbered  the  ad- 

^  Cum  intentione  faciendi  quod  facit  Eeclesia. 

2  The  manifest  object  of  this  extraordinary  liberality  in  making  all 
men  capable  of  celebrating  the  sacrament  of  initiation  into  the  Church, 
is  the  multiplication  of  her  subjects,  of  those  to  -whom  she  may  after- 
wards apply  the  laws  against  apostates. — Tr. 

^  Exorcism  fur  chasing  awav  the  devil,  salt  placed  in  the  mouth, 
making  the  sign  of  the  cross  on  the  forehead,  the  eyes,  and  the  shoul- 
ders, putting  spittle  on  the  nostrils  and  the  ears,  chrism  on  the  top  of 
the  head,  etc 


Chap.  IV.  1547.         SACRAMENT    OF    CONFIRMATION.  103 

ministration  of  that  sacrament.  It  Ava.s  therefore  declared,  tliat 
saving  the  greater  impos.sibility,  the  priest  could  not  omit  in  any 
sacrament  any  of  the  rites  approved  by  the  Church.  The  coun- 
cil was  prudent  enough  to  avoid  saying  a  word  about  their  an- 
tiquity and  their  apostolicity ;  but  doctors  of  divinity  are  left 
free  to  carry  these  as  far  back  as  they  may  think  proper ;  and 
the  Church  has  never,  in  so  far  as  we  know,  condemned  those 
who  have  boldly  attributed  them  to  the  Apostles.  "  Although 
natural  water  suffices,"  says  the  Roman  Catechism,  "  the  prac- 
tice has  been  always  observed  in  the  Church,  in  conformity  with 
the  tradition  of  the  Apostles,  when  baptism  is  solemnly  admin- 
istered, of  accompanying  it  with  the  holy  chrism."  Here  we 
have  the  chrism  carried  up  to  the  time  of  the  Apostles.  But  let 
us  not  be  too  loud  in  our  reclamation  ;  we  shall  find  it  traced 
back  anon  to  Jesus  Christ. 

On  the  whole,  then,  in  the  decree  on  bapti.sm,  certain  con- 
cessions, were  made  ;  on  confirmation,  with  which  the  council 
was  next  to  be  occupied,  there  could  be  none.  The  Roman 
Church's  teachings,  where  she  has  departed  most  from  apostolic 
Christianity,  are,  in  general,  those  with  respect  to  which  she 
is  least  disposed  to  make  concessions,  and  those,  too,  where  she 
can  least  afford  to  make  them ;  for,  as  soon  as  she  shall  have 
yielded  on  one  detail,  there  would  be  no  reason  for  her  not 
yielding  on  others.  Here  it  was  not  on  details  that  she  had 
been  attacked ;  it  was  the  sacrament  itself  that  was  denied, 
and  there  was  no  middle  course  betwixt  abandoning  it  and 
maintaining  it. 

If  confirmation,  in  itself,  has  nothing  bad  or  absurd  in  it,  it  is 
nevertheless  one  of  the  points  on  which  it  will  be  found  most 
difficult  to  be  consistent  with  the  Bible,  and  even  with  tradition ; 
with  the  Bible,  for  it  says  nothing  about  it ;  Avith  tradition,  for 
it  had  long  spoken  of  something  quite  different.  The  early 
fathers  speak  of  a  ceremony,  in  which  young  Christians,  at  their 
admission  to  the  supper,  came  previously  to  declare  themselves 
members  of  the  Church,  and  to  confirm,  in  public,  the  engage- 
ments they  had  made,  or  that  had  been  made  for  them  ;  this  is 
what  takes  place,  in  most  Protestant  churches,  under  the  name  of 
reception  of  catechumens.  The  priest's  part  was  confined  to  the 
inteiTogation  of  the  neophytes,  the  receiving  of  their  oath,  mak- 
ing them  an  exhortation,  and,  finally,  ofTering  up  a  solemn  prayer 
for  them.  As  it  was  natural,  considering  the  occasion,  that  that 
prayer  should  have  for  its  special  object  their  obtaining  grace  to 
be  steadfast  in  their  faith,  there  came  to  be  gradually  attached  to 
it  a  certain  sacramental  importance.  Next,  there  followed,  it  is 
not  known  at  what  period,  the  use  of  a  certain  anointing  ;  it  was, 


164  HISTORY   OF   THE    COUNCIL    OF    TRENT.  Book  U. 

as  it  were,  a  second  baptism,  or,  if  you  will,  the  complement  of  the 
first.  In  proportion  as  baptism  assumed  a  more  formal  and  com- 
plete signification,  confirmation  could  not  but  become  more  and 
more  dissociated  from  it ;  from  being  the  portion  of  a  sacrament 
it  became  a  distinct  sacrament  itself  Upon  that,  both  word  and 
thing  underwent  a  change.  The  word,  for  uistead  of  indicating 
a  ceremony  in  which  certain  vows  tvo'e  confirmed,  it  designated 
that  only  in  which  young  Christians  were  confirmed  in  their  re- 
solution to  be  Christians ;  the  thing  also,  for  the  accessory  be- 
came the  principal,  the  custom  of  pronouncing  certain  vows,  cer- 
tain declarations  of  faith,  fell  into  disuse,  and  the  anointing  only 
remained.  1 

It  is  the  anointing,  then,  accompanied  by  a  certain  formula, 
that  now  constitutes  confirmation  in  the  Roman  Church.  Under 
that  form  it  is  clear  that  it  could  not  be  maintained  either  that 
the  first  Christians  made  a  sacrament  of  it,  or  that  they  had 
any  idea  of  it  at  all.  Accordingly,  more  than  one  scruple  arose 
in  the  very  midst  of  the  council.  Some  members  went  so  far  as 
timidly  to  recall  the  old  ceremony  of  the  confirmation  of  vows. 
"  In  opposition  to  this,"  says  Sarpi,  "  it  was  urged  that  since 
that  was  no  longer  practiced,  it  must  be  believed  that  it  had 
never  been  practiced,  seeing  that  the  Church  never  tcoidd 
have  abolished  so  iisefid  a  ceremony!''  An  argument  this,  it 
will  be  seen,  quite  irrefutable.  Next,  if  it  was  thought  useful, 
why  not  re-establish  it  without  abandoning  confirmation  by 
anointing  ?  Far  from  that,  precisely  the  contrary  had  been  al- 
ready voted.  "If  any  one,"  it  is  said  in  one  of  the  canons  on 
baptism,  "  maintains  that  children,  come  to  the  age  of  reason, 
ought  to  be  called  upon  to  confirm  the  vows  taken  in  their 
name  by  their  godfathers  and  godmothers,  let  him  be  anathema." 
Anathema,  also,  to  whosoever  shall  maintain  that  the  privation 
of  the  sacraments  ought  to  be  the  only  penalty  inflicted  on  those 
who  should  refuse  to  sanction  that  which  their  godfathers  and 
godmothers  have  promised  for  them.  "VMiat,  then,  shall  their 
punishment  be  ?  Of  this  the  decree  says  nothing.  The  sen- 
tence is  left  blank,  to  be  afterward  filled  up  by  the  Inquisition. 
Thus  when  the  Roman  Church  leaves  those  at  peace  who  have 
broken  with  her,  let  us  be  well  aware  that  it  is  not  from  tolera- 

^  The  Roman  Catechism  does  not  even  attempt  to  estabhsh  confirm- 
ation by  Scripture:  it  contents  itself  with  quoting  two  passages  which 
two  of  the  Fathers,  it  says,  applied  to  this  sacrament.  One,  quoted  by 
St.  Ambrose,  is  the  following,  "  Grieve  not  the  Hoh'  Spirit,  by  whom 
ye  have  been  sealed  as  with  a  seal."  The  other,  quoted  by  St.  Augus- 
tine is  this,  "  The  love  of  God  has  been  shed  abroad  in  your  hearts,  \)j 
the  Iloly  Spirit  whom  he  hath  given  to  us."  To  cite  this  is  tantamount 
to  a  confession  tliat  there  is  nothing:  to  cite. 


Chap.  IV.  1547.       CAN  THE   BISHOP  ALONE   CONFIRM?  l65 

tion.     The  council  has  pronounced  an  anathema  on  all  who 
should  believe  that  she  ought  not  to  punish  them. 

A  point  remained  which  had  never  yet  been  definitively 
settled.  Is  the  bishop  alone  competent  to  administer  confirma- 
tion ? 

To  this  idea  church  usage  had  long  been  favourable  ;  but  one 
would  fain  have  said  why,  and  this  was  not  easy.  In  fact,  it  is 
impossible  to  give  any  other  reason  than  custom.  The  Cate- 
chism, which  never  recoils  from  a  difficulty,  thinks  it  has  found 
one.  "  Holy  Scri'pture''  it  says,  "  infonns  us  that  the  bishop 
alone  can  confirm.  We  read  in  the  Acts  that  those  of  Samaria 
having  received  the  Gospel,  Peter  and  John  jorayed  fo)-  them, 
that  they  might  receive  the  Holy  Ghost — they  having  only  as 
yet  been  hai^tizcdT  Where  do  we  find  the  bishop  here  ?  it  will 
be  asked,  and  it  might  quite  as  well  be  asked,  Where  is  there 
any  anointing  ?  Where  is  there  confirmation  ?  For  what  is 
here  related  singularly  resembles  all  those  cases  in  which  the 
Holy  Ghost  is  spoken  of  as  conferred  by  the  Apostles.  But 
wait — "  Phihp,  who  had  baptized  the  Christians  of  Samaria, 
was  only  a  deacon.  It  is  seen,  then,  according  to  what  is  here 
stated,  that  he  had  not  had  the  power  to  confirm  them."  What 
is  seen  here  is  that  the  Apostles  alone  conferred  the  Holy  G  host ; 
but  that  that  means  confirmation  is  what  nobody  would  ever 
have  the  idea  of  seeing  if  not  suggested  to  him  beforehand. 
Next,  what  are  people  thinkmg  of?  If  this  incident  prove  any 
thing  it  would  prove,  in  fact,  that  a  deacon  can  not  confirm  ; 
could  it  prove  that  a  priest  can  no  more  do  so  than  a  deacon  ? 

As  for  logical  motives,  they  were  completely  wanting.  Con- 
firmation is  neither  as  important  as  baptism,  seeing  that  it  is 
not  held  to  be  indispensable  to  salvation,  nor  so  solemn  as  the 
supper,  seeing  that  nothing  can  be  imagined  more  awful  than 
the  act  of  in  some  sort  creating  the  divine  body  of  the  Saviour. 
If,  therefore,  a  mere  priest  is  competent  to  administer  these  two 
sacraments,  why  not  thp  other  also  ?  By  the  light  of  the  his- 
toric details  given  above  this  may  be  well  enough  understood. 
When  confirmation  was  what  we  have  said  it  was,  it  was  natural 
for  the  bishop,  the  first  pastor  of  the  place,  to  preside  at  the 
ceremony  ;  when  anointing  was  made  an  additional  part  of  it, 
it  was  further  natural  that  the  honor  of  performing  it  should  be 
left  to  him ;  but  there  is  nothing  to  prove  that  it  was  an  ex- 
clusive right,  or,  still  less,  that  the  hand  of  a  bishop  was  con- 
sidered as  necessary  to  the  spiritual  validity  of  the  sacrament. 
In  the  Greek  Church  mere  priests  have  always  had  the  right  to 
confirm.  We  might  refer,  moreover,  to  what  we  shall  afterwards 
have  occasion  to  say  on  the  impossibility  of  finding,  in  the  early 


166  HISTORY    OF   THE   COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  II. 

times  of  the  Church,  any  appreciable  difference  betwixt  bishops 
and  simple  pastors. 

The  majority  of  the  council  shewed  itself,  nevertheless,  in- 
clined to  decide  the  question  definitively  in  favour  of  the  bishops  ; 
but  as  some  instances  were  adduced  of  priests  who  had  confirmed 
in  virtue  of  a  papal  commission,  it  was  found  necessary  to  say 
no  more  than  that  "  the  bishop  is  the  ordbiary  minister  of  con- 
firmation." 

As  for  the  act  in  itself,  neither  its  nature  nor  its  object  was 
explained.  The  first  canon  bore  anathema  against  whosoever 
should  refuse  to  call  it  a  sacrament,  and  the  second  against 
Avhosoever  should  maintain  that  there  is  no  virtue  in  the  sacred 
oil  with  which  it  is  administered.  It  is  upon  this  that  the 
Roman  Catechism  displays  a  naivete,  we  had  almost  said  an 
impudence,  at  which  many  Roman  Catholics  might  well  feel  as 
much  confounded  as  ourselves.  "  In  order  that  the  faithful,"  it 
says,  "  may  be  more  penetrated  Avith  the  sacredness  of  this 
sacrament,  they  ought  to  be  shewn,  not  only  that  Jesus  Christ 
is  its  author,  but  that  it  is  he  who,  as  Pope  Saint  Fabian 
attests,  prescribed  the  use  of  the  chrism.  As  for  the  consecra- 
tion of  the  chrism,  it  is  the  bishop  that  performs  it  A\ith  particu- 
lar ceremonies,  and  those  ceremonies,  as  Pope  Fabian  attests, 
were  prescribed  to  the  Apostles  by  Jesus  Christ  at  the  last  sup- 
per, ivhere  he  shewed  them  the  way  in  ivhich  the  cliristn  teas 
to  be  'inade"  Had  we  not  the  text  before  our  eyes  in  Latin,  in 
French,  in  two  different  editions,  we  should  feel  apprehensive 
lest,  in  quoting  the  above  lines,  we  might  be  oidy  repeating  a 
m.alicious  bit  of  fun  taken  from  some  anti-Romanist  pamphlet.^ 

The  other  congregation,  that  of  the  Cardinal  Del  Monte,  had 
taken  up  the  same  questions  under  their  disciplinar}''  point  of 
view. 2  They  had  succeeded  tolerably  well  in  putting  together, 
without  serious  disputes,  the  old  regulations  made  by  councils 
and  by  popes.  Only  after  having  placed  at  the  head  of  the  draft 
of  the  decree,  that  the  administration  of  the  sacraments  should 
be  gratuitous,  there  was  much  difference  of  opinion  as  to  what 
that  should  mean.  Some  desired  that  not  only  should  the  priest 
ask  nothing,  but  that  he  should  accept  of  nothing.  "  Freely  ye 
have  received,"  says  the  Gospel,  "  freely  give."     It  was  replied, 

^  "Where  ?  In  one  of  his  decretals,  "  quas  dubias  esse  non  duhmm  est,'' 
says  Baronius.  "The  Church,"  adds  tlie  latter,  "has  no  need  of  these 
intruded  documents."  We  know  that  such  is  not  the  opinion  of  the 
Catechism,  It  is  right.  The  day  that  the  Roman  Church  should  pro- 
scribe all  such  documents  it  would  sign  its  own  abdication. 

=  It  is  not  certain  that  this  examination  took  place  at  this  time ;  but 
the  precise  date  is  of  little  consequence  in  relation  to  what  we  have  to 
say  about  it. 


Chap.  IV.  1517.     sllolLl)    TUli    SACKAMEM'S   UE   GKATLlTOUis  .'  I  tW 

also  out  of  kSoripturc,  "  Tliat  he  that  serves  the  altar  should  live 
by  the  altar,"  and  that  the  prohibition  to  accept  any  pay,  how- 
ever good  in  the  case  of  churches  rich  enough  to  support  their 
priests,  evidently  could  not  be  applied  to  those  which  had  no 
revenues.  In  support  of  this,  a  canon  of  the  fourth  Council  of 
Carthage  was  adduced,  which  canon  permits  the  receiving  of 
what  may  be  offered  by  the  parents  of  a  child  who  has  been 
baptized;  the  Council  of  Latcran  also,  under  Innocent  III.,  was 
adduced,  which  authorizes  and  even  approves  the  custom  of 
making  offerings  on  sacramental  occasions.  Notwithstanding 
this,  it  was  found  impossible  to  come  to  a  common  understanding 
on  the  point.  The  drafts  that  were  proposed  always  said  either 
too  much  or  too  little,  opened  the  door  for  making  a  traffic  ol" 
sacred  thincfB,  or  shut  it  on  law^ful  resources.  The  matter  was 
resumed  in  a  general  congregation,  but  there  the  nicmbers  were 
as  little  of  one  mind  upon  it,  and  the  idea  of  pronouncing  any 
decision  was  abandoned.  The  great  majority  of  priests,  it  is 
known,  have  not  thought  themselves  interdicted  from  interpret- 
mg  this  silence  in  the  sense  of  a  sanction. 

At  all  events,  taking  the  thing  in  its  general  aspect,  and  apart 
from  the  abuses  that  have  mingled  with  it,  we  could  not  have 
reproached  the  council  with  not  having  forbidden  tho  acceptance 
of  any  offering.  At  an  epoch  in  which  the  clergy  nowhere  had 
any  llxed  stipend,  there  were  many  churches  which,  without  the 
casual  (fees),  could  not  have  had  ministers  at  all.  There,  all 
that  could  reasonably  be  required  of  the  priests  was,  that  they 
should  not  refuse  the  sacraments  to  those  who  might  wdsh  to 
have  them  gratis.  Even  in  wealthy  churches  the  acceptance  of 
voluntary  offerings  had  not,  in  itself,  anything  contrary  to  good 
order,  to  the  spirit  of  Christianity,  to  the  dignity  of  religion  and 
its  ministers. 

The  evil,  an  inevitable  evil,  is  that  offerings  of  this  kind  soon 
end  in  being  neither  voluntary  nor  free.  Have  you  a  child  to 
present  to  baptism  ?  You  will  not,  it  is  trae,  be  made  to  pay 
in  advance,  and,  if  known  to  be  not  in  a  condition  to  pay,  your 
child  Avill  nevertheless  be  baptized  ;  but  however  near  you  may 
be  to  a  state  of  entire  and  absolute  incapability  of  paying,  you 
will  pay  ;  you  will,  though  it  should  be  while  murmuring,  nay, 
perhaps,  while  cursing  the  priest,  and  possibly  religion  too,  sub- 
mit to  the  miserable  tariff,  in  w^iich  all  that  is  most  holy  in  this 
world  is  charged  for  in  shillings  and  pence.  Your  father,  your 
son,  may  have  died.  A  good  Catholic,  you  would  fain,  that  a 
mass  were  said  for  his  soul's  repose  ;  but  the  tariff  is  there,  and 
money  you  have  none.  VYell,  then,  it  is  very  possible  that  the 
priest  to  whom  you  shall  apply,  may  consent  to  say  for  nothing 


168  HISTORY   OF  THE   COUNCIL    OF  TRENT.  Book  II. 

a  mass  for  which  you  have  not  wherewithal  to  pay  ;  but  it  is 
very  possible  also  that  he  may  refuse ;  most  of  all,  it  is  very 
possible  that  you  wall  not  venture  to  ask  it  of  him.  Let  him 
refuse  it,  or  let  him  grant  it,  it  will  not  the  less  be  received, 
acknowledged,  and  universally  admitted  that  in  the  Roman 
Church  if  one  wants  a  mass,  he  must  pay  ;  and  the  more  con- 
vinced you  shall  be  of  the  efficaciousness  of  masses  for  the 
deliverance  from  the  flames  of  purgatory  of  some  soul  who  is 
dear  to  you,  the  more  monstrous  will  it  appear  in  your  eyes  that 
that  inequality  between  poor  and  rich  which  already  seems  so 
sad  and  deplorable  in  this  world,  should  perpetuate  itself  beyond 
the  tomb. 

Such  are  the  natural  inconveniences  attending  this  dangerous 
state  of  things.  But  we  have  thus  far  supposed  the  priests  to 
be  as  accommodating  and  as  charitable  as  possible,  as  desirous 
as  all  ought  to  be  to  lessen  by  kindly  concession  the  suffering 
which  the  natural  inequality  of  conditions  may  produce.  Is  it 
generally  so  ?  This  is  what  the  most  devoted  champion  of 
Roman  Catholic  honour  would  not  dare  to  affirm.  Wherever 
Roman  Catholicism  has  not  been  obliged  to  moderate,  under  the 
eye  of  the  Reformation,  or  of  the  vigilant  superintendence  of  the 
press,  the  shameless  dealings  with  Avhich  it  has  been  reproached, 
how  many  priests  do  we  see  that  seem  to  have  the  slightest 
suspicion  that  there  can  be  the  smallest  harm,  the  very  least 
impropriety,  in  openly  making  money  of  everything  ?  In  such 
places,  it  is  true,  the  people  are  no  more  scandalized  than 
the  priests  are  ashamed ;  but  this  accordance  between  the 
brutishness  of  the  one  party,  and  the  greed  of  the  other,  this 
silence  on  the  part  of  the  populace  with  such'  abuses  before  their 
eyes,  this  absence  of  any  suspicion  that  all  this  is  not  the  due 
course  of  things,  forms  only  an  additional  and  a  permanent  plea 
against  the  religion  which  has  so  far  deprived  people  and  priests 
alike  of  the  capacity  for  perceiving  the  commonest  proprieties. 
In  other  countries,  for  the  rest,  with  a  little  more  modesty  in 
respect  of  forms,  the  system  is  ever  the  same.  In  France,  for 
example,  little  as  the  public  are  allowed  to  peep  behind  the 
curtain,  not  a  day  passes  without  the  discovery  of  things  alike 
incredible  and  scandalous.  When  a  French  Roman  Catholic,  on 
his  return  from  Italy,  takes  occasion  to  praise  the  Catholicism  of 
his  own  country,  as  infinitely  purer  and  nobler  than  that  which 
he  has  left,  you  will  only  have  to  shew  him  in  France,  in  the 
towns  as  well  as  in  the  villages,  at  Paris  as  well  as  in  the  heart 
of  Brittany  and  of  Provence,  the  greater  number  of  the  things  he 
had  been  most  scandalized  with  at  Rome,  at  Naples,  at  Palermo. 
Yet  well  does  the  Roman  Church  know,  and  a  hundred  times 


Chap.  IV.  1547.  SALE  OF   INDULGENCES,  &c.  109 

has  she  proved  it  to  lier  cost,  that  it  is  by  questions  bearing  on 
money  that  her  opponents  succeed  best  in  decrying  her  among 
the  masses.  She  cannot  have  forgotten  that  the  sale  of  indul- 
gences was,  not  indeed  the  cause,  but  certainly  the  occasion,  of 
the  most  terrible  bloM^  she  has  ever  received.  And  yet  nothing 
is  changed.  Indulgences,  masses,  dispensations,  all  continue  to 
be  sold,  to  be  negotiated  we  ought  to  say,  for  the  spirit  of  the 
age  has  passed  over  this  quarter,  and  it  presents  one  of  the  rare 
instances  in  which  Roman  Catholicism  keeps  pace  with  the 
modern  march  of  ideas.  Of  all  the  details  recently  given  by  the 
journals  on  the  trade  in  masses,  not  one  has  been  contradicted. 
More  than  that,  the  result  of  these  has  been  to  prove  that  it  was 
not  an  abuse  but  a  necessity.  A  priest  can  say  only  one  mass 
in  the  day.  As  soon  as  a  church  has  more  demands  upon  it 
than  it  can  meet,  it  must,  unless  it  would  embezzle  the  money 
it  has  received,  contrive  that  the  masses  with  which  it  is  charged 
shall  be  said  somewhere.  It  will  content  itself,  therefore,  with 
deducting  a  certain  per  centage,  and  a  mass  ordered  at  Paris 
shall  be  said  at  a  hundred,  at  two  hundred  leagues'  distance,  per- 
haps beyond  France  altogether.  This  is  one  way  among  others 
of  honestly  doing  business  ;  but  while  these  details  supply  excuses 
for  individuals,  they  not  the  less  cast  a  bitter  reflection  on  the 
system.  And  what  shall  we  say  of  that  Agency  of  the  Catlwlic 
Apostolate,  established  at  Rome  as  the  commerical  go-between 
for  the  clergy  of  all  countries  in  transacting  with  the  Roman 
chancery  ?  All  may  have  read  that  famous  circular  in  which 
commerical  forms,  oddly  accoutred  in  pious  phraseology,  re- 
appeared with  a  curious  mysticism.'  Shall  we  be  told  that  the 
pope  neither  created  nor  sanctioned  that  agency  ?  It  may  be 
so,  but  where  then  did  the  agency  find  the  tariff^  annexed  to  the 

^  "I  have  tlie  honour  to  transmit  to  you  the  table  of  the  principal 
petitions  -which  the  Agency  undertakes  to  obtain  at  Rome.  Your  zeal 
for  the  glory  of  God  and  the  salvation  of  souls  inspire  me  with  the 
confident  assurance  that  you  will  select  such  articles  as  are  best  fitted 
for  obtaining  that  end  in  3'our  parish." 

P^  lenary  indulgence 10  fr.  80  c.  equal  to  £0     9     0 

Right  of  giving  it 12  "  80  "       "  0  10     0 

Right  to  indulgence-ch.ai>\ets,  crosses, 

&c 12  "  80  "       •'  0  10     8 

Right  to  obtain  from  an  ordinary 
confessor  absolution  in  cases  re- 
served to  the  pope 25  "  "  10     0 

Dispensation  from  the  celebration 
of  masses  with  which  one  has  been 

charged 27   "  "  118 

Dispensations  from  the  recitation  of  the  bi-eviary,  dispensations  of  all 
sorts,  in  marriage  affairs,  dispensations  from  vows  of  virginity,  power  to 
read  forbidden  books,  to  give  dying  persons  the  papal  benediction,  <fee. 

H 


170  HISTORY   OF   THE   COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  II. 

circular  ?  If  it  has  somewhat  enhanced  the  sums  charged, 
since  it  must  be  allowed  to  reimburse  itself  for  it  outlay,  it  has 
not  changed  the  nature  of  the  articles.  And  if  such  be  the 
state  of  matters  at  the  centre,  why  should  it  be  otherwise  at  the 
extremities  ?  Each  parish,  accordingly,  has  its  chancery,  its 
articles,  its  tariff;  and  although  it  might  be  shewn  that,  after 
all,  the  average  income  of  Roman  Catholic  priests  is  not  more 
than  that  of  Protestant  ecclesiastics,  we  might  repeat,  that  here 
we  have  not  to  do  with  persons  but  with  principles.  The 
question  is  not  how  little  or  how  much  this  way  of  making 
money  may  at  the  present  day  produce.  We  make  bold  to 
assert,  in  accordance  with  thousands  of  Roman  Catholics,  as 
well  as  with  a  notable  part  of  the  council  itself,  that  fiscality 
played,  and  has  not  ceased  to  play  in  their  Church,  a  part  which 
is  incompatible  alike  with  the  true  interests  of  religion  and  the 
true  dignity  of  the  priesthood. 

In  congregation  general  (Session  VII.,  March  3,  1547),  the 
sacraments  had  the  same  fate  with  original  sin  ;  the  members 
shirked  the  difficulty  of  exhibiting  what  had  been  so  often  called, 
in  the  course  of  discussion,  the  doctrine  of  the  Church.  They 
voted  the  twenty-seven  anathemas  (fourteen  on  the  sacraments 
in  general,  ten  on  baptism,  and  three  on  confirmation),  and  to 
this  they  confined  themselves.  Many  bishops  began  to  be  seri- 
ously uneasy  about  the  reception  which  this  silence  on  the  part 
of  the  council,  with  respect  to  so  many  important  questions, 
might  provoke  in  other  quarters.  Protestants  have  been  much 
censured  for  exhibiting  their  own  creed  only  in  attacking  that  of 
Roman  Catholics.  To  this  reproach,  often  just,  often  exagger- 
ated, and  which,  moreover,  applies  only  to  individuals,  who 
shall  forbid  our  opposing  the  course  which,  on  so  many  occa- 
sions, the  council  itself  pursued  ?  On  the  sacraments  in  general, 
on  baptism,  on  confirmation,  we  are  told  what  must  not  be  be- 
lieved ;  but  where  are  we  to  find  what  is  to  be  believed  ?  In 
the  Roman  Catechism,  no  doubt  ?  It  is  very  true,  we  find  no 
lack  of  assertions  there.  We  have  quoted  it  for  light  on  certain 
details  ;  taken  as  a  whole  it  would  not  be  less  curious.  "It  is 
certain,"  it  says,  "  that  Jesus  Christ  instituted  baptism."  All 
well  I  you  think,  here  is  what  is  reasonable  and  not  to  be  doubted. 
But  wait  I  something  more  must  be  said-;  that  alone  would  be 
far  too  scriptural  and  too  simple.  Jesus  Christ  instituted  bap- 
tism ;  but  when  ?  You  believe  that  it  was  when  he  said  to  the 
Apostles — "  Go,  baptize  all  nations  ?"  Q.uite  a  mistake  ;  it  was 
when,  after  being  himself  baptized  by  St.  John,  he  communi- 
cated to  the  water,  by  contact  with  his  divine  body,  the  power 
to  sanctify  men.     "  All  the  world  is  satisfied  of  this,"  adds  the 


Chap.  IV.  1517.  I'LURALITY    OF   BENEFICES.  171 

French  translation.  It  is  unfortunately  true  tliat  some  of  the 
Fathers  have  taught,  or  have  appeared  to  teach,  this  rniracuhnis 
consecration  of  Mater  by  the  baptism  of  Christ ;  but  if  this  was 
anything  more  than  a  figure,  if  a  certain  character  was  really 
communicated  to  water  in  general — who  shall  explain  to  us  how 
there  should  be  no  profanation  or  sacrilege  in  employing  it  daily 
for  the  vilest  purposes  ?  What  becomes  of  tJds  so  great  and 
divine  virtue^  in  the  water  of  a  brook  or  a  sewer — that  virtue 
which,  as  you  w^ould  have  it,  has  passed  from  Jordan  into  all 
the  M'aters  of  the  universe  ?  One  feels  ashamed  at  having  any- 
thing to  do  with  such  miserable  questions  ;  but  to  whom  belongs 
the  shame,  if  not  to  those  who  provoke  them  ? 

And  on  what  has  been  said  of  all  Jews,  pagans,  heretics  even, 
being  competent  to  baptize,  "  who  would  not,"  says  the  cate- 
chism, "  admire  the  goodness  and  the  wisdom  of  our  God  I" 
Certainly,  once  make  baptism  indispensable  to  salvation,  and  it 
would  have  been  a  piece  of  frightful  barbarity  not  to  have  facil- 
itated the  administration  of  it ;  but  where  do  we  discover  that 
God  has  granted  to  baptism  greater  facilities  than  to  the  other 
sacraments  ?  Shall  we  say,  in  the  institution  of  it  ?  No  ;  when 
the  Saviour  said,  "  Go,  baptize,"  it  was  to  the  Apostles  that  he 
addressed  himself,  quite  as  much  as  when  he  instituted  the  sup- 
per. Shall  we  say,  in  the  writings  of  the  Apostles  ?  But  there 
is  not  a  trace  of  it  there.  In  the  usages  of  the  primitive  Church  ? 
No  more  shall  we  find  it  there.  If,  at  that  epoch,  there  were 
facilities,  it  was  much  rather  for  the  supper,  which  we  see  gen- 
erally celebrated  under  the  form  of  a  repast,  while  baptism  re- 
mained a  ceremony,  and  a  ceremony,  we  have  said,  occurring 
but  twice  a  year.  Thus,  in  all  this,  there  is  no  divine  order  but 
the  ingenuity  of  the  Church,  no  concessions  but  those  which 
were  indispensable  to  the  Church's  being  able  to  teach,  since 
she  had  made  it  a  tenet,  the  absolute  necessity  of  baptism. 

And  now,  leaving  doctrines,  let  us  proceed  to  decrees  of  refor- 
mation. 

The  question  of  the  plurality  of  benefices  was  of  immense  ex- 
tent ;  immense  from  the  number  of  cases  which  it  embraced,  and 
still  more  from  the  number  of  difficulties  which  it  started.  To 
elude  it  was  impossible.  If  a  man  have  two  bishoprics,  it  is 
evident  that,  with  the  best  intentions,  he  must  always  be  out  of 
one  of  them.  As  for  the  inferior  benefices,  the  same  man  had 
often  four  or  five,  sometimes  ten  or  twelve,  sometimes  twenty. 
There  had  been  cases  of  cardinals  having  thirty.  Leo  X.,  on  the 
coming  to  the  popedom,  had  tiventy-eiglit,  and  those  of  the  richest, 
^  Tanta  et  tarn  divina  virtue  a  Domino  aqtiii^  tnbuta. 


172  HISTORY   OF    THE    COUNCIL    OF    TRENT.  Book  II. 

Sad  as  this  state  of  things  must  have  been,  the  abuse  had  not 
been  carried  so  far  in  all  cases  as  one  might  think.  Many  bene- 
fices being  too  poor  for  a  priest  to  live  by  them,  the  holding  of 
more  than  one  became,  in  many  instances,  positively  necessitated 
by  the  inadequacy  of  the  revenues  ;  but  this  inadequacy  of  rev- 
enue, people  soon  became  habituated  to  estimate  much  less  by 
the  legitimate  wants  of  the  titular  than  by  the  exigencies  of  his 
rank  m  the  world  or  in  the  Church,  The  son  of  a  nobleman 
would  have  thought  it  beneath  his  dignity  not  to  have  more  than 
one.  In  default  of  nobility,  the  very  possession  of  one  important 
benefice  gave  a  man  a  pretext  for  possessing  others,  in  order  that 
he  might  with  the  better  grace  support  the  first.  Almost  all  the 
bishop's  held  abbacies,  let  us  add,  and  we  shall  then  have  noted 
beforehand  the  feeble  efficacy  of  the  regulations  which  were  to 
be  made,  let  us  add,  we  say,  that  they  continued  to  have  as  many 
and  more  of  them  than  ever.  One  day,  a  century  and  a  half 
after  the  time  of  the  council,  a  French  bishop,  in  the  course 
of  conversation,  happened  to  inveigh  against  pluralities.  This 
caused  no  small  astonishment,  and  naturally  enough.  The  man 
who  spoke  was  abbot  of  St.  Lucien,  prior  of  Gassicourt  and  of 
Plessis-Grimaux.  He  then  began  to  explain  how,  looking  at  the 
expenses  he  had  to  meet,  he  thought  himself  authorized  to  in- 
fringe the  rules  he  preached.  And  yet  that  bishop  was  Bossuet. 
The  liberty  he  allowed  himself  from  motives  which  we  may  be- 
lieve to  have  been  justifiable,  might  be  taken  by  others  quite  as 
well,  although  with  less  to  justify  them.  When  Fenelon,  on 
his  being  appointed  Archbishop  of  Cambray,  resigned  the  only 
abbacy  he  had,  that  of  St.  Valery,  "  You  are  ruining  us,"  said 
the  Archbishop  of  Rheims,  who  had  a  dozen  at  least.  "  Let 
each  do  as  his  conscience  bids  him,"  said  Fenelon  in  reply. 
"Well,  then,"  rejoined  Le  Tellier,  "my  conscience  ordains  me 
to  keep  what  1  have."  Hear,  too,  John  Carrero,  relating  to  the 
Senate  of  Venice  in  1569,  five  years  after  the  close  of  the  coun- 
cil, what  he  had  seen  in  France,  whence  he  had  just  returned  : 
"  Things,"  said  he,  "  are  come  to  that  pass,  that  people  trade 
openly  in  bishoprics  and  abbacies,  as  they  would  do  in  pepper 
and  cinnamon.  It  is  seldom  that  the  collation  of  a  benefice  does 
not  bring  much  money  to  the  man  who  gives  notice  of  it,  to  the 
man  who  obtains  it,  and  to  the  broker  who  takes  it  up  as  a 
job.  In  most  instances  they  are  given  away  before  they  are 
vacant.  Thus,  in  my  time,  some  one  found  it  difficult  to  con- 
vince people  that  he  was  not  dead."^     And  a  Roman  Catholic 

^  Thus  Leo  X.,  when  at  the  age  of  seven,  was  nominated  by  the  King 
of  France  to  the  archbishopric  of  Aix,  and  while  the  papal  confirmation 
was  in  course  of  being  got,  word  came  that  the  titular  was  still  alive. 


Chap.  IV.  1547.  COMMENDAMS— PENSIONS.  173 

writer,^  after  having  adduced  tliis  pas.sage,  adds,  "  There  was 
a  little  more  modesty  at  Home,  but,  at  bottom,  things  went  on  in 
no  other  way."  • 

Originally,  care  was  taken  to  unite  in  the  same  hands  what 
were  called  ccnniKitUAc.  benefices  only,  that  is  to  say,  without 
the  cure  of  souls  and  without  any  obligation  to  residency.  But 
for  a  long  time  all  distinction  had  been  eflaced.  The  plurality 
of  incompatihles  had  only  to  be  paid  for  at  a  somewhat  higher 
rate. 

Often,  by  a  curious  subterfuge,  people  contrived  to  have  the 
union  of  two  benefices  pronounced  at  Rome,  and  the  beneficiary 
was  then  considered  to  have  only  one.  The  pope  ordinarily  re- 
quired that  these  benefices  should  be  adjacent  to  each  other, 
but  distance  was  not  an  absolute  hindcrance.  Such  or  such  a 
benefice  lay  half  in  France,  half  in  Italy,  or  in  Germany.  On 
the  death  of  the  beneficiary  the  union  ceased,  but  might  be  re- 
newed by  a  fresh  act  of  the  will  of  the  pope. 

Let  us  recall,  finally,  the  commendams,  the  most  fertile  of  all 
those  sources  of  abuse.  Amid  the  disorders  of  the  middle  asfes, 
it  often  happened  that  a  benefice,  in  danger  of  perishing  by  usur- 
pation or  pillage,  was  remitted,  recommended  {commendatimi) 
either  to  a  lord  or  to  some  other  person  in  a  condition  to  protect 
it.  Tliis  kind  of  tutelage  was  given  at  first  only  for  a  time,  and 
until  the  election  of  a  titulary ;  but  as  the  commendatory,  mean- 
while, drew  the  revenues,  a  taste  was  acquired  for  the  office. 
The  popes,  on  their  side,  had  discovered  it  to  be  an  excellent 
raieans  of  adding  to  the  number  of  their  creatures  ;  the  com- 
mendatory, besides,  was  always  willing  to  purchase  the  indefi- 
nite prolongation  of  his  right  with  a  portion  of  the  revenues. 
Commendams,  accordingly,  came  to  be  granted  for  life  ;  new 
ones  were  erected  every  day,  and  it  was  long  since  any  anxiety 
had  been  felt  about  justifying  them  on  the  plea  of  their  being 
necessary  for  the  protection  of  the  benefice.  "  Were  an  Indian  to 
come  among  us,"  says  Montesquieu,-  "  it  would  take  six  months 
before  he  could  be  made  to  comprehend  what  a  commendatory 
abbe  is,  as  he  paces  the  pavements  of  Paris."  Those  abbes,  in 
fact,  were  not  priests ;  they  were  only  what  was  called  in  orders  ; 
they  could  go  out  of  these  and  marry,  on  condition  of  relinquish- 
ing their  commendams  ;  still  there  were  ways  and  means  of  es- 
caping from  this  condition.  It  was  thus  that,  under  Lewis  XIII., 
the  Count  de  Soissons  had  accumulated  several  abbacies  on  the 
head  of  a  poor  abbe  irom  Poitou,  his  preceptor,  to  whom  he  gave 
a  thousand  crowns  a  year,  while  he  took  from  him  a  hundred 
thousand.  Even  bishoprics  had  been  sometimes  put  in  com- 
'  The  Abbe  Pi-ompsault.  '  See  his  Pensees  diverses. 


1*74  HISTORY   OF   THE   COUNCIL  OF  TRENT.  Book  H. 

mendam,  in  the  hands  of  laymen,  by  means  of  their  having  a 
coadjutator  ad  sacra,  that  is  to  say,  charged  with  the  ecclesias- 
tical functions  of  the  bishopric.  In  short,  the  most  fertile  imag- 
ination could  not  invent  anything,  in  point  of  abuses  of  this  sort, 
which  had  not  existed  somewhere,  and  often  everywhere.  Sov- 
ereigns, we  are  aware,  had  much  to  do  with  these  disorders. 
Shall  we  hold  this  to  be  an  excuse  ?  We  have  seen  that  "  There 
was  a  little  more  modesty  at  Rome,  but,  at  bottom,  things  went 
on  in  the  same  way."  The  most  respectful  objection  had  al- 
ways met  with  a  worse  reception  than  the  most  exorbitant  de- 
mands, always  flattering  as  these  were,  in  one  sense,  to  him  in 
whom  the  right  of  granting  them  was  acknowledged  to  reside. 
In  fine,  if  the  abuse  of  the  commendams  was  a  little  less  exces- 
sive in  Italy  than  in  other  countries,  that  of  pensions  secured  on 
benefices  was  pushed  farther  there  than  anywhere  else.  A  cen- 
tury after  the  council,  in  1663,  we  find  De  Angelis,  bishop  of  Ur- 
bino,  complaining  that  his  rich  see,  after  deducting  the  pensions 
charged  upon  it,  only  brought  him  sixty  crowns.  About  the 
same  period  we  see  the  bishoprics  of  Ancona  and  Pesaro  vacant 
for  several  years,  none  being  found  willing  to  occupy  them  under 
the  burdensome  conditions  that  were  required.  In  1667,  there 
were  at  Naples  twenty  bishops  or  archbishops  who  had  preferred 
quitting  their  sees  to  ruining  themselves  by  paying  the  pensions 
with  which  they  were  burdened.  It  was  the  same  thing  with 
parish  hvings.  The  owner  of  the  richest  of  them  had  some- 
times hardly  wherewithal  to  live.  Down  to  the  country  livings 
there  was  hardly  one  the  petty  casual  income  of  which  was  not 
burdened  with  obligations  of  this  sort.  Such  was  the  state  of 
the  clergy  in  Italy  under  the  eyes  of  the  pope. 

Never  had  the  plurality  of  benefices,  under  all  its  forms,  been 
more  severely  stigmatized  than  it  was  now  in  full  council ;  and 
all  that  was  said  on  the  subject  was  so  true,  so  incontestable, 
that  there  was  nothing  to  say  in  reply.  The  legates  allowed  the 
torrent  to  pass  ;  aware  that  every  objection  would  only  serve  to 
provoke  details  that  would  become  always  more  and  more  pre- 
cise. Already,  not  a  word  could  be  said  that  was  not  an  allu- 
sion to  facts  generally  known,  and  which  did  not  call  up  proper 
names  on  all  lips. 

But  there  was  one  name  which  none  durst  pronounce,  and 
which  yet  was  only  all  the  more  clearly  to  be  read  alike  in  the 
quailing  looks  of  some,  and  in  the  dehght  shewn  by  others — it 
was  that  of  the  pope.  Of  three  cases  marked  out  for  the  ani- 
madversion of  the  assembly,  there  were  always  at  least  two  in 
which  he  was  an  interested  party,  and  really  the  only  interested 
party.      From  whom  had  those  countless  dispensations  been 


Chap.  IV.  1517.    THE   MATTER   REFERRED   TO    THE   POPE.  IVf) 

bought  which  subverted  everything  ?  From  the  pope.  "Who 
had  erected  those  scandalous  cominendams  ?  The  pope.  Who 
had  granted  those  benefices  without  end,  enjoyed  by  Cardinal 
Ridolri,  who  was  unceasingly  adduced  as  the  very  type  of  pre- 
lates born  to  snatch  up  everything  and  do  nothing  ?  The  pope. 
One  could  not  thump  the  shoulders  of  such  delinquents  without 
the  pope's  shoulders  feelmg  the  whole  weight  of  the  blow. 

But  as  there  had  been  an  afiectatioa  of  criticising  particu- 
larly the  abuses  that  prevailed  among  the  cardinals  and  his 
holiness's  officers,  the  legates  cleverly  availed  themselves  of  this 
fact,  to  obtain  from  the  assembly  an  order  to  write  to  him  about 
these.      He  alone,  said  the  Italians,  is  fit  to  reform  his  own 
court.     This  was  true  ;  men  of  the  best  intentions  felt  only  too 
sensibly  that  nothing  could  be  done  without  him.     After  having 
discoursed  at  great  length  on  the  evil,  a  round  of  consultation  had 
been  made  as  to  the  remedies  that  should  be  determined  upon, 
and  the  severest  canonists  had  been  unable  to  suggest  anything 
that  had  not  been  oft-times  decreed  by  other  councils,  nay, 
by  popes  themselves,  without  its  having  ever  resulted  in  any 
true  and  lasting  amelioration.     What  made  the  question  still 
more  complicated  was,  that  there  were  several  points  which 
none  could  dream  of  regulating  by  precise  laws,  many  outlets 
which  it  was  impossible  to  close  effectually.     However  scandal- 
ous the  abuses  of  dispensations  might  have  been,  it  would  have 
been  unreasonable  to  deprive  the  pope  absolutely  of  the  right  of 
granting  them,  after  assuming  that  he  had  the  power;  what- 
ever evil  might  arise  from  the  plurality  of  benefices,  still  there 
were  cases  in  which  it  was  natural  and  necessary ;  so  that  it 
could  not  but  remain  permitted.      But  on  what  conditions  ? 
There  was  nothing  to  forbid  the  fixing  of  a  certain  number. 
But  who  should  be  the  person  to  judge  of  these  ?     The  pope, 
ever  the   pope.      If,   then,   they  were  to   accept  the   proposal 
of  remitting  the  affair  to  him,  it  was  quite  as  much  from  their 
own  embarrassment  as  from  deference  to  him.     Next,  to  put  a 
stop  to  murmuring,  the  legates  affirmed  that  Paul  would  confine 
himself  to  the  reformation  of  his  own  court,  and  would  leave 
the  rest  to  the  deliberations  of  the  assembly. 

There  is  no  need  to  shew  that  this  distinction  was  illusory. 
"  Could  we  make  a  single  regulation,"  said  those  who  ventured 
to  speak  freely,  "  in  which  some  of  the  officers  of  the  pope 
would  not  be  found  interested  ?  There  is  nothing  for  it,  then, 
but  either  to  be  for  ever  falling  back  and  keeping  quiet,  or  ask- 
ing the  pope's  permission  to  go  on."  This  became  still  more 
evident  on  the  arrival  of  the  brief  by  which  he  authorized  the 
assembly  to  regulate  certain  points  relative  to  benefices,  and,  in 


176  HISTORY   OF  THE   COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  XL 

particular,  to  restrain  unions.  The  legates  durst  not  even  give 
official  information  of  it.  The  authorization  assumed  far  too 
plainly  inferiority,  dependence,  and  the  boldest  felt,  nevertheless, 
that  in  things  of  this  kind  the  council  could  not  regulate  mat- 
ters alone.  This  twitching  sense  of  the  indignity  done  to  the 
council  may  be  perceived  in  all  those  articles  of  the  decree  that 
emanated  from  those  deliberations. 

But  it  had  first  to  pass  through  many  modifications.  Discus- 
sion tending  only  at  first  to  augment  uncertainty  and  embarrass- 
ment, some  bishops  asked  w^hether  it  would  not  be  better  for 
each  to  produce  his  own  plan.  They  should  thus  have  at  least 
some  clear  ideas  before  them,  and  would  know  what  they  had 
to  discuss.  "  As  for  themselves,"  they  said,  "  they  were  about 
to  set  about  doing  this."  Now,  there  were  twenty  of  them,  and 
those  of  the  least  timid,  some  devoted  to  the  emperor,  others, 
and  this  was  still  more  disquieting,  determined  to  quail  before 
no  difficulty  in  having  done  with  a  state  of  things  which  they 
looked  upon  as  deadly  to  religion  and  the  Church.  Great, 
therefore,  was  the  anxiety  of  the  legates. 

Those  bishops  kept  their  word.  After  several  meetings  had 
been  held.  Cardinal  Pacheco,  their  president,  presented  a  m.enio- 
rial,  in  which  they  craved  : 

Before  all,  and  as  the  first  foundation  of  all  true  reformation 
in  these  matters,  that  residence  be  declared  of  divine  right ; 

That  those  cardinals  who  had  several  bishoprics  should  imme- 
diately be  compelled  to  make  their  option,  and  to  keep  only  one  ; 

That  all  the  dispensations  should  be  revoked  where  the  ne- 
cessity for  them  should  not  be  sufficiently  demonstrated  ; 

That  the  union  of  offices  should  be  abolished  ; 

That  pluralities  should  be  confined  to  cases  of  evident  neces- 
sity ; 

And  other  analogous  measures.  In  all,  there  were  eleven 
articles,  forming  the  ground-work  of  a  complete  code  on  the 
subject. 

It  was  an  admirably  well-concocted  plan ;  but  it  was  clear 
that  unless  the  council  meant  to  declare  itself  above  the  pope, 
it  could  not  pretend  to  decree  all  this.  And  yet  the  legates 
were  so  much  afraid  of  any  direct  discussion  on  the  respective 
authority  of  the  two  powers,  that  they  dared  not  attack,  nor 
prompt  others  to  attack  the  document  as  tending  to  weaken 
that  of  the  pope.  "What  especially  alarmed  them  was,  not  so 
much  the  boldness  of  the  articles,  as  the  fact  itself  of  meetings 
held  without  their  cognizance,  and  beyond  the  reach  of  their 
influence.  Twenty  bishops  I  Ten  or  twelve  more  and  they 
would  be  the  majority.  ...   .^..  .       ., 


Chap.  IV.  1547.      THE  POl'E  AUTHORIZES  SOME  c;ONCESS10NS.  Ill 

The  lcp:atcs  hastened,  therefore,  to  send  ofl'  the  memorial  to 
Rome.  The  pope  Avould  no  more  venture  than  they  to  reject  it 
as  invasive  of  his  rights.  Most  of  its  authors  were  Spaniards  ; 
there  was  an  impression  that  Charles  V.  was  at  their  back. 
The  pope  appointed  a  commission,  and,  contrary  to  the  advice 
previously  given  hy  Del  Monte,  that  commission  recommended 
concessions  on  some  points ;  it  being  clearly  understood  that 
there  should  be  nothing  yielded  on  principles,  and  that  means 
should  be  reserved  for  retaining  with  one  hand  what  might  be 
''  yielded  by  the  other.  Each  of  the  eleven  demands  was  the  ob- 
ject, therefore,  of  a  reply  more  or  less  favourable,  more  or  less 
evasive  ;  still  the  pope  did  not  deem  it  fit  to  cause  the  work  of 
the  commission  to  be  communicated  to  the  assembly.  He  sent 
it  to  the  legates,  instructing  them  to  use  their  discretion  in 
yielding  nothing  if  they  could  possibly  avoid  it,  or  in  conceding, 
within  those  limits,  what  it  might  seem  to  them  impossible  to 
refuse.  It  is  but  doing  justice  to  Paul  III.  to  admit,  that  amid 
all  his  efforts  for  the  maintenance  of  his  privileges,  he  viewed 
them,  in  theory,  with  far  more  reason  and  coolness  than  other 
popes  have  done.  He  defended  them  as  acquired  rights,  rather 
than  as  rights  inherent  in  the  popedom.  A  man  of  a  practical 
mind,  he  had  Httle  taste  for  the  doating  sophisms  with  which 
others  had  attempted  to  stay  up  papal  omnipotence.  If  he 
committed  faults,  he  did  not  at  least  insist  on  people  giving 
them  the  stamp  of  divinity  ;  if  he  made  little  use  of  the  lessons 
of  reason,  at  least  he  made  no  shew  of  setting  it  at  defiance  and 
believing  himself  above  it.  It  was  to  him  that  Contarini  ven- 
tured to  say  in  an  epistle,  "  Christ's  law  is  a  law  of  liberty. 
It  forbids  that  gross  servitude  which  the  Lutherans  have  justly 
compared  to  the  Babylonish  captivity." 

He  had  given  permission,  accordingly,  for  some  concessions 
being  made.  Cervini,  the  second  legate,  wished  to  avail  him- 
self of  that  permission  ;  Del  Monte,  more  candid,  or  more  able, 
opposed  this.  Provided  that  the  votings  were,  in  the  end,  such 
as  he  should  desire,  he  treated  it  as  of  little  consequence  that  an 
imposing  minority  should  acquire  shape  and  consistence  in  the 
debates.  Was  he  already  thinking  of  the  tiara  ?  We  know  not ; 
but  he  said  to  himself,  no  doubt,  that  the  council  would  come  to 
an  end  while  the  popedom  would  not  come  to  an  end  ;  that  the 
rubs  and  annoyances  therefore  would  be  of  short  duration,  while 
the  advantages  would  be  peraianent.  At  all  events  the  sequel 
shewed  that  he  had  struck  on  the  right  path.  Such  as  we  see 
him  when  cardinal  at  Trent,  the  same  we  shall  find  him  when 
pope  at  Rome. 

The  Spaniards  had  already  protested  against  the  transmission 


178  HISTORY    OF   THE   COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  11. 

of  their  memorial  to  the  pope.  In  fact,  to  put  the  question  to 
himself  on  what  matters  he  would  permit  them  to  vote,  was  to 
enter  into  the  spirit  of  his  last  bull,  and  to  condemn  themselves 
never  to  pronounce  on  a  single  point  beyond  what  it  might  be 
his  good  pleasure  to  leave  to  the  decision  of  the  assembly.  Fresh 
protests  met  with  no  better  success,  and  when  the  decree  came 
to  be  drawn  up,  the  Spaniards  were  beaten  at  all  points.  The 
legates  had  brought  a  plan  conceived  after  their  own  fashion,  and 
with  which  at  first  it  seemed  impossible  that  all  should  not  be 
satisfied.  A  host  of  abuses  were  noticed  in  it,  and  among  these, 
several  that  the  Spaniards  themselves  had  not  specifically  men- 
tioned. But,  at  bottom,  there  were  hardly  any  that  were  seri- 
ously proscribed ;  and,  indeed,  strictly  speaking,  none  were  pro- 
scribed. The  preamble  of  the  decree  bore  these  words,  "  saving 
always  in  all  things  the  authority  of  the  apostolic  see  ;"^  and  as 
it  was  not  declared  that  the  holy  see  had  ever  exceeded  its  rights, 
this  was  as  much  as  to  say,  that  its  power,  for  the  future,  would 
be  absolutely  the  same  as  during  the  past.  There  was  some 
courage  in  having  thus  plainly  avowed  that  the  pope  meant  to 
remain  master  ;  it  was  really  throwing  down  the  gauntlet  to  the 
council  and  to  the  Church.  A  Spanish  doctor  went  so  far  as  to 
apply  the  epithet  diabolical  to  the  opinion  that  residence  was  a 
matter  of  papal  right.  Several  begged  that  the  clause  salva 
sempe?'  might  be  removed  ;  many  also  complained  that  the  canons 
drawn  up  by  the  legates,  frequently  referred  to  the  pontifical 
decrees,  which  were  placed,  by  this  fact,  on  the  same  footing 
with  those  of  the  council,  and  even  above  them  ;  for  they  seemed 
less  to  confirm  them  than  to  seek  to  be  confirmed  by  them.  Care 
had  been  taken,  in  truth,  to  put  this  honour  only  on  popes  that 
were  even  then  of  ancient  date  ;  but,  in  point  of  legal  principle, 
of  what  consequence  was  antiquity  ?  They  were  popes  ;  it  was 
the  pope.  And,  moreover,  among  the  decrees  quoted  in  those 
of  the  council,  there  was  not  one  in  which  the  superiority  of  the 
pope,  if  not  taught,  was  not  at  least  constantly  assumed.  Thus, 
in  the  question  of  benefices,  reference  was  made  to  a  constitution 
of  Innocent  III.,  where  the  plurality  of  benefices  is  forbidden,  it 
is  true,  but  always  saving  those  cases  in  which  it  shall  have  been 
permitted  by  the  pope.  To  condemn  the  abuse  they  did  only 
what  confirmed  the  right.  As  for  the  salva  semper  of  the  pre- 
amble, not  only  was  it  allowed  to  remain,  but  it  re-occurs,  under 
all  forms,  in  the  greater  number  of  the  articles. 

This  decree  has  fifteen.     Had  we  to  prove  in  detail  the  cor- 
rectness of  the  preceding  observations,  we  should  take  the  sixth, 
being  that  which  treats  of  the  unions  of  benefices.     It  has  been 
^  Salva  semper  in  omnibus  sedis  apostolicse  auctoritate. 


Chap.  IV.  1517.      THE   COUNCIL   SUBJECT  TO   THE   TOPE.  179 

seen  that  of  all  the  ahuses  that  were  attacked,  this,  if  not  the 
most  dcplorahlc,  -was  often  the  most  strange.  The  pope  had 
noted  it  in  his  bull  as  one  of  those  which  he  allowed  the  council 
to  discuss.  Hence,  it  appeared  at  once  that  it  was  less  as  mem- 
bers of  a  council,  than  as  councillors  of  the  pope,  that  the  prelates 
had  to  pronounce  on  this  point  Did  they  proceed  at  least  to 
make  a  liberal  use  of  the  permission  ?  But  they  could  decide 
nothing  for  the  future  which  would  not  go  to  bind  the  hands  of 
the  pope,  and  it  is  clear  that  this  was  not  what  he  meant  to  per- 
mit them  to  do.  They  proceeded,  then,  to  the  more  limited  task 
of  repairing  the  past ;  but  here,  again,  they  behoved,  in  applying 
a  remedy  to  an  evil,  not  to  appear  as  if  the  pope  were  its  author. 
The  bishop,  accordingly,  not  as  bishop,  but  as  the  pope's  dele- 
gate, might  demand  an  inspection  of  the  titles  of  all  the  unions 
dating  within  the  last  bygone  forty  years.  Those  which  should 
have  been  fraudulently  obtained,  he  should  declare  to  be  null 
and  void  ;  those  which  did  not  appear  to  be  justified  by  sufficient 
reasons,  he  should  declare  to  have  been  fraudulently  obtained, 
and  nullity  was  to  follow.  Thus  the  bishop  has  no  part  in  the 
proceedings  at  all ;  it  is  a  delegate  of  the  pope,  who  in  the  name 
of  the  pope,  verifies  an  act  that  emanates  from  the  pope.  Is  that 
act  of  the  nature  of  an  abuse  ;  is  it  bad  ?  The  pope  then  is  not 
supposed  to  have  anything  to  do  with  it ;  but  this  does  not  pre- 
vent its  being  competent  lor  him,  in  spite  of  the  judgment  pro- 
nounced by  the  bishop,  and  without  his  ceasing  to  pass  for 
nothing  in  all  that  is  bad  and  improper  in  the  act,  to  renew  and 
to  uphold  it.  "  The  union  shall  be  null,"  says  the  decree,  "  un- 
less the  2^ope  sJuill  judge  otherwise.''^  Thus  he  remained  in 
everything,  and  everywhere  supreme.  And  not  only  could  he 
reverse  all  that  might  be  done  by  the  bishops,  but  one  might 
foresee  that  the  bishops  would  care  little  to  commence  the  strug- 
gle and  set  themselves  up  as  judges  of  the  sovereign  judge. 

Accordingly,  although  the  prospect  of  this  verification  by  the 
bishops  may  from  time  to  time  have  inspired  more  or  less  shy- 
ness and  caution,  there  is  hardly  one  of  those  abuses  which,  as 
we  have  already  said,  may  not  be  found  re-occurring  long  after 
the  council  had  had  its  day  ;  that  is  to  say,  if  they  have  disap- 
peared at  last,  we  can  hardly  give  the  credit  of  this  either  to  the 
assembly  that  condemned  them,  or  to  the  bishops  who  were 
charged  with  the  duty  of  prosecuting  them,  or  to  the  supreme 
authority  which  remained  the  principal  source  of  them.  We 
have  already  seen  what  residence  practically  was  in  the  seven- 
teenth and  eighteenth  centuries.  All  those  abbes  who  were  so 
famed  under  Louis  XV.  for  their  wit,  their  gallantry,  and  often, 
*  Nisi  aliter  a  sede  apostolica  declaratum  fuerit 


180  HISTORY  OF  THE  COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  J I 

too,  for  their  infidel  opinions,  held  abbacies  m  cmnmendam. 
Cardinal  Mazarin  held  forty  abbacies.  The  infamous  Cardinal 
Dubois  had,  in  addition  to  the  archbishopric  of  Cambray,  within 
which  he  never  set  a  foot,  above  a  million  and  a  half  (of  francs) 
in  revenues  drawn  from  various  benefices.  The  last  abbe  of  St. 
Denis  was  a  bastard  of  Louis  XIV. ;  he  was  three  years  old 
when  his  father  conferred  that  dignity  on  him.  Down  to  the 
close  of  the  last  century,  we  everj'^where  see  prelates  devouring 
what  might  have  sufiRced  for  the  support  of  two  or  three  hundred 
priests ;  everywhere  we  see,  at  the  same  time,  priests,  parish 
priests,  living  in  the  deepest  distress ;  almost  everywhere  also,  in 
contempt  of  another  canon,  we  see  sacred  buildings,  monuments 
of  the  piety  of  the  fathers,  falling  into  ruins  in  the  hands  of  their 
children.  Many  cathedrals  suffered  less  from  Jacobin  vandalism 
than  from  the  long  continued  neglect  of  their  bishops.  "  This 
is  mine,  or  it  is  the  Church's,"  Henri  IV.  would  say  when  he  saw 
a  building  in  a  dilapidated  state.  Bishops,  abbes,  beneficiaries 
of  all  kinds,  thought  of  nothing  but  making  money.  Exceptions 
there  were,  no  doubt,  but  how  many  ?  The  general  mass  were 
all  infected  with  this  vice ;  all  seemed  to  say  with  Louis  XV., 
*'  This  will  last  out  my  time  at  least."  The  Revolution  came. 
It  rendered  the  same  service  to  the  Church  that  it  did  to  the 
states  which  it  entered.  It  made  a  clean  sweep  of  abuses ;  it 
took  from  Roman  Catholicism  the  possessions  that  impaired  her 
respectability,  and  were  destroying  her.  It  compelled  her  to  re- 
constitute herself,  at  least  partially,  on  bases  more  in  harmony 
with  the  new  ideas  and  the  ancient  wishes  of  the  populations 
around  her.  There  is  but  one  country  in  which  as  yet  nothing 
is  changed,  and  that  country  is  Rome. 


CHAPTER    V. 

(1547.)  • 
SESSION    VIII.       TRANSLATION    OF    THE    COUNCIL    TO    BOLOGNA. 

Projects  of  trauslatiou — The  plague — Great  hurry — Decree  of  transla- 
tion— Eighth  Session — Minority — Resistance — To  obey  in  order  to 
be  obeyed. 

The  seventh  session  had  gone  off  better  than  expected.  The 
doctrinal  canons  had  passed  unanimously  ;  the  others  had  been 
contested  by  only  thirteen  bishops,  several  of  the  opposing  mem- 
bers having  accepted  the  assurance  that  there  would  be  a  return 
to  those  subjects,  and  that  the  making  of  more  efficacious  regu- 
lations would  be  seen  to. 

Meanwhile,  Paul  III.  began  to  be  tired  of  the  sleepless  nights 
that  the  council  cost  him.  It  was  long  since  he  had  been  weary- 
ing to  get  rid  of  a  tribunal  where  such  bold  truths  might  be  ut- 
tered with  impunity.  The  very  decrees,  although  the  work  of 
his  ministers,  nevertheless,  were  always  saying  what  was  still 
too  much.  Thus,  in  the  last,  notwithstanding  the  precautions 
that  had  been  taken  to  avoid  censure,  and  to  prescribe  nothing, 
the  decree  as  a  whole  was  not  the  less  a  censure  on  the  past  and 
a  formal  vow  for  the  future.  Those  unions  which,  in  respect  of 
the  scandalous  nullity  of  the  motives  alleged  in  their  favour, 
were  about  to  pass  for  having  been  obtained  by  fraud,  the  pope 
well  knew  he  himself  had  oft-times  granted,  knowingly,  wilfully, 
without  having  been  in  the  least  taken  at  unawares  or  deceived. 
The  more,  therefore,  there  was  the  affectation  of  his  being  sup- 
posed incapable  of  doing  such  things,  the  more  plainly  were  they 
declared  to  be  heinous  offences,  and  he  himself  interdicted  from 
relapsing  into  them.  And  what  was  to  be  made  of  that  canon, 
the  first  of  the  decree,  where  it  was  said  that  no  man  sliould  be 
a  bishop  who  was  not  born  in  lawful  wedlock  ?  More  fortunate 
then  his  predecessor,  Paul  III.  could  name  his  father  ;  but  he 
who  ought  not  to  have  been  a  father,  had  children  ;  and  those 
children  he  had  created  cardinals  I 

In  fine,  notwithstanding  the  devotedness  and  tlie  ability  of  his 
legates,  he  could  see  that  the  assembly  might,  in  a  moment,  es- 


182  HISTORY    OF   THE    COUNCIL  OF  TRENT.  Book  H. 

cape  their  grasp,  and  that  the  least  step  taken  out  of  the  course 
traced  out  for  it,  would  infallibly  be  Ibllowed  by  many  more. 
Any  moment,  too,  the  emperor  might  end  in  placmg  himself  at 
the  head  of  the  pope's  opponents.  Was  it  not  to  him  that  even 
already  the  kind  of  insurrection  on  the  part  of  the  Spanish  pre- 
lates was  attributed  ?  Had  he  not  himself  said  to  the  nuncio, 
at  the  time  of  the  departure  of  the  pontifical  troops,  that  he 
had  no  greater  enemy  than  the  pope  ?  Had  he  not  openly  im- 
puted to  the  pope's  son,  the  Duke  of  Parma,  the  sedition  that 
had  nearly  cost  him  Genoa  ?  And  one  may  be  allowed  to 
suppose  that  Paul  HI.,  pre-occupied  as  he  might  be  with  the 
pohtical  side  of  all  the  questions  then  agitated,  had  not  remained 
insensible  to  the  untowardness  of  theological  quarrels,  and  to 
the  danger  of  exposing  to  the  public  gaze  so  many  divisions 
that  had  hitherto  remained  hid  within  the  bowels  of  the  Roman 
unity. 

The  memorial  of  the  Spanish  bishops  had  filled  up  the  measure. 
There  was  now  an  absolute  necessity  to  have  done  with  such 
risks,  but  neither  the  pope  nor  his  councillors  knew  how  to  set 
about  it.  They  durst  not  dream  either  of  closing  the  council,  see- 
ing so  much  still  remamed  for  it  to  do,  or  of  suspending  it,  since 
it  would  have  been  impossible  to  say  why,  and  ere  long  there 
would  be  a  cry  for  the  suspension  being  taken  off.  There  re- 
mained a  third  course  to  follow,  and  that  was  to  transfer  the 
assembly  to  some  locality  where  the  pope  would  be  its  master ; 
yet  it  did  not  well  appear  how,  unless  he  were  to  employ  actual 
force,  he  could  be  more  its  master,  wherever  else  it  might  meet, 
than  at  Trent.  In  any  event  a  pretext  was  necessary  ;  and  see- 
ing they  had  remained  at  Trent,  at  the  very  height  of  the  agita- 
tion caused  by  the  war,  how  could  they  excuse  their  quitting  it, 
when  the  emperor  was  quite  in  a  condition  to  provide  for  the 
security  of  the  city  ?  Thus  the  pope  could  do  no  more  than  sim- 
ply recommend  his  legates  to  hold  themselves  ready  to  seize  the 
slightest  occasion  thaf  might  occur.  They  behoved,  for  the  rest, 
to  beware  of  alleging  that  they  had  the  pope's  orders,  but  were 
to  act,  as  if  at  their  own  instance,  in  virtue  of  the  bull  which 
they  had  received  two  years  before.  The  sequel  shewed  that  it 
was  not  without  having  an  object  that  he  had  ordered  them  to 
act  in  virtue  of  general  powers,  now  somewhat  old  in  date.  Thus 
he  reserved  to  himself  the  means  not  only  of  appearing  a  stranger 
to  the  translation,  but  of  disavowing  it,  in  case  the  scheme  should 
not  have  the  majority  in  its  favour,  or  should  raise  too  many 
storms  in  other  quarters  after  being  voted  by  the  assembly.  He 
was  sure,  besides,  that  the  legates  would  not  hesitate  either  to 
take  upon  themselves  the  whole  responsibility,  or  to  submit,  if 


Chap.  V.  1317.     PROJECTS   OF   TRANSLATION— THE   l'LA(;i'E.  183 

necessary,  to  a  public  disavowal.  Was  not  his  cause  that  of  all 
the  cardinals  ?  And  of  what  consequence  was  it  that  a  legate 
should  compromise  hinisell"  in  the  eyes  of  all  Europe,  jjrovided 
he  thereby  saved  or  strengthened  that  ancient  throne  on  which 
he  might  hope  to  sit  one  day  himself"?  But  here  devotcdness  was 
not  enough.  All  the  questions  that  people  had  put  to  themselves 
at  Rome,  without  seeing  what  answer  could  be  given,  were  found 
again,  at  Trent,  as  insoluble  as  ever.  To  gain  all  the  voices 
underhand,  supposing  even  that  that  had  been  possible,  would 
have  availed  nothing  ;  there  behoved  to  be  some  reason,  good  or 
bad,  put  forward  in  the  decree  of  translation. 

The  session,  accordingly,  was  held  on  the  3d  of  March.  One 
day,  two  days  passed.  The  members  began  to  talk  over  the 
matters  to  be  treated  of  at  the  next,  fixed  for  the  21st  of  April. 
Should  it  not  be  the  Eucharist  ?  The  legates  hesitated ;  the 
little  ardour  they  shewed  in  organizing  the  debates  contrasted 
strangely  with  the  importance  of  the  subject.  They  seemed  to 
be  absorbed  with  some  grand  problem ;  and  so,  in  fact,  they 
were.  They  consulted  their  confidential  friends.  Still  nothing, 
absolutely  nothing,  turned  up.  At  last  a  bishop  happened  to  die. 
Magnificent  obsequies  were  ordered  on  the  occasion.  The  legates 
were  present,  and  all  the  council  along  wdth  them  ;  it  was  at 
least  another  day  gained.  All  at  once  it  was  recollected  that 
two  or  three  other  persons  had  died  that  same  week,  and  that 
several  were  seriously  ill.  A  light  seemed  to  flash  upon  their 
minds.  The  problem  was  resolved ;  the  pretext  was  found  at 
last.  The  Plague  was  at  Trent ;  there  was  nothing  for  it  but 
to  leave  as  speedily  as  possible. 

"Was  it  not,"  says  Father  Paul,  "merely  an  artifice  of  the 
legates  ?"  This  question  has  given  rise  to  keen  controversy. 
One  party,  perhaps,  has  yielded  too  much  to  the  pleasure  de- 
rived from  relating  a  scene  worthy  of  a  comedy  ;  the  other,  per- 
haps, ought  to  have  abandoned  the  idea  of  representing  the 
legates  as  having  followed,  instead  of  having  given  the  impul- 
sion. That  a  disease  prevailed  is  incontestable.  But  whether 
the  legates  seriously  behoved  that  it  was  pestilential,  and  that, 
as  such,  it  was  dangerous,  is  what  we  shall  never  know.  At 
all  events,  if  we  have  no  proof  that  they  were  not  sincere,  we 
consider  that  neither  have  we  enough  of  proof  on  the  other  side 
justly  to  banish  all  suspicion  of  insincerity.  After  all,  of  Avhat 
consequence  is  it  ?  It  was  at  the  worst  no  great  crime  to  take 
advantage  of  a  risk  which  came  so  miraculously  to  their  aid  ; 
the  essential  and  the  truly  characteristic  fact  is  the  order  that 
they  had  received  to  do  all  that  was  in  their  power  to  get  the 
council  transferred  to  another  place.     Now,  this  fact  is  admitted 


184  HISTORY   OF  THE   COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  II. 

by  Pallaviciiii.  "It  appeared  to  them,"^  he  says,  "that  they 
would  never  have  a  better  opportunity  of  transferring  the  coun- 
cil, a  measure  which  they  thought  of  great  consequence  to  the 
security  of  the  Church.  They  resolved  to  avail  themselves  of 
previous  orders,  orders  quite  recent  and  reiterated.  These 
orders  prescribed  to  them  to  proceed  to  the  translation,  if  the 
majority  should  consent  to  it,  and  should  they  themselves  reck- 
on that  the  Holy  See  was  threatened  with  some  serious  mis- 
chief." 

They  made  great  haste,  therefore,  too  much  haste,  perhaps, 
not  to  make  their  eagerness,  if  not  suspected,  at  least  suspicious  ; 
but  however  small  the  delay,  was  there  not  a  risk  of  all  being 
lost  ?  The  sick  might  recover,  as,  in  fact,  they  almost  all  did ; 
the  public  panic,  after  having  been  increasing  for  about  a  week, 
might  subside.  It  did  not  seem  good,  therefore,  to  go  after  the 
9th  of  March,  six  days  after  the  session.  It  was  when  uneasy 
feelings  were  at  their  greatest  height,  several  prelates,  wrong- 
fully accused,  perhaps,  of  collusion  with  them,  but  who,  never- 
theless, were  afterwards  among  their  friends,  had  set  off  in  all 
haste.  The  legates  had  caused  an  inquest  to  be  held  on  the 
sanitary  condition  of  the  city.  The  result  was  the  certification 
of  a  dangerous  disease  being  present ;  but  the  report  had  been 
drawn  up  by  two  physicians,  both  of  whom  were  devoted  to  the 
pope, 2  and  those  belonging  to  the  city  had  refused  to  sign  it. 
They  pursued  their  purpose.  Just  as  they  had  decided,  in  theo- 
logical questions,  so  many  points  that  were  manifestly  uncer- 
tain, they  now  pronounced,  and  that  too  in  the  strongest  terms,-^ 
that  it  was  dangerous  to  remain  any  longer  in  Trent.  Then  it 
was  that  the  legates  made  known  the  bull,  kept  two  years  se- 
cret, authorizing  them  to  transfer  the  council  to  another  place,  and 
the  assembly  adjourned  to  the  following  day,  when  they  were  to 
fix  what  that  place  should  be. 

It  was  not  without  difiiculty  that  that  vote  had  been  ob- 
tained. The  imperialists  had  said  that  they  were  not  to  be 
duped  ;  and  though  there  might  have  been  some  of  them,  as  is 
likely,  who  did  not  at  bottom  feel  very  comfortable,  the  dread 
of  the  emperor  prevailed  far  more  with  them  than  that  of  the 
plague.  "  Let  us  wait  at  least  a  few  days  longer,  they  had 
said.     Let  us  allow  the  most  timid,  if  necessary,  to  go  to  Verona 

^  Book  ix.  chap.  xiii. 

^  Jerome  Frascator,  physician  to  the  council,  and  Balduino  Balduini, 
physician  to  the  premier  legate. 

^  De  hujusmodi  morbo  ita  manifeste  et  notarie  constat,  iit  prselati  in 
hac  civitate  sine  vita?  discriraine  commorari,  et  in  ca  idcireo  minima 
retineri  possint  et  debeant. 


I 
Chap.V.  1547.     LEGATES  AND  PAPAL  PARTY  LEAVE  TRENT.  185 

or  to  Venice.  If  the  disease  disappears,  they  will  return  ;  if  it 
shall  continue,  we  can  act  accordingly  ;  but  let  it  not  be  said 
that  we  fled  at  the  first  shadow  of  danger."  Why  did  they 
speak  of  a  shadow  ?  Nothing  was  more  real,  in  the  eyes  of  the 
legates  and  of  the  pope,  than  the  danger  with  which  they  had 
menaced  themselves  with  their  terrible  articles. 

Meanwhile  the  panic  was  increasing.  Word  came  that  the 
towns  in  the  neighbourhood,  in  serious  alarm,  already  talked  of 
shutting  their  gates  on  everything  coming  from  Trent,  and  the 
decision  that  they  had  taken,  by  accrediting  the  rumours  that 
were  afloat,  risked  the  immediate  declaration  of  such  a  measure. 
On  the  day  following,  the  imperialists  were  no  less  opposed,  the 
others  no  less  docile.  The  legates  remarked  that  they  could  not 
pass  into  the  territories  of  any  prince  without  having  first  asked 
and  obtained  his  permission ;  that  thus,  looking  to  the  urgency 
of  the  case,  the  place  for  resuming  their  sittings  must  be  selected 
from  the  Papal  States.  That  place  had  been  already  chosen. 
It  was  Bologna.  All  the  prelates  that  had  voted  for  the  trans- 
lation voted  for  that  city.  Finally,  on  the  11th  of  March, 
a  public  session  (the  eighth)  was  held.  The  decree  of  transla- 
tion was  read .  Thirty-eight  prelates  approved,  and  fourteen  pro- 
tested. 

The  legates  left  Trent  on  the  12th,  and  were  followed  by  all 
that  remained  of  the  papal  party.  The  rest  refused  to  leave. 
And  yet  it  was  said  in  the  bull  of  1545,  that  on  the  translation 
being  once  decided  on  by  the  legates,  all  the  prelates  should  be 
bound  to  follow  them,  and  that  "  even  under  ecclesiastical  cen- 
sures and  penalties,"  even  "  under  the  pains  of  perjury,"  even, 
in  fine,  "  under  pain  of  incurring  God's  indignation,  and  that 
of  the  blessed  Apostles,  Peter  and  Paul."^  What  then  was 
thought  of  these  menaces  by  those  who  persisted  in  remaining  ? 
The  majority  had  pronounced  the  decision  ;  the  legates  acted  in 
virtue  of  powers  regularly  exercised.  The  decision  may  have 
been  a  bad  one,  but  it  was  perfectly  legal.  What  right  then 
had  fourteen  bishops  to  pretend  to  exemption  from  it?  Did 
they  not,  by  acting  thus  with  respect  to  one  of  the  decisions  of 
the  assembly,  virtually  give  their  sanction  to  others  doing  the 
like  by  whatever  did  not  meet  their  views  ?  And  yet  it  is  not 
unlikely  that,  once  returned  to  their  dioceses,  those  same  bish- 
ops made  no  more  scruple  than  others  in  commanding  obedience 
in  the  name  of  that  very  pope  whom  they  had  braved,  and  of 
that  very  council  which  they  had  mocked.     Thus  it  is,  thus  has 

^  Sub  censuris  et  poenis  ecclesiasticis.  Sub  perjurii  poenis.  Indig- 
nationem  oranipotentis  Dei,  ac  beatorum  Petri  et  Pauli  apostoloruni 
ejus. 


186  HISTORY  OF  THE   COUNCIL  OF  TRENT.  Book  II. 

it  ever  been  with  the  Church  of  Rome.  The  most  refractory 
doctor  as  respects  the  Church,  the  most  refractory  bishop  as 
respects  the  pope,  the  most  refractory  parish  priest  as  respects 
his  bishop,  all  of  them,  no  sooner  than  the  power  of  reigning  is 
in  question,  contrive  to  speak  of  their  superiors  as  they  would 
speak,  and,  perhaps,  as  they  would  not  speak  of  God  himself 


BOOK   111. 

FROM  TIIE  TRANSLATION  OF  THE  COUNCIL  TO  BOLOGNA 
(1547)  TO  THE  SECOND  SUSPENSION  AT  TRENT  (1562). 

CHAPTEE    I. 

(1547-1549.) 

SESSIONS  IX  AND  X.  THE  COUNCIL  AT  BOLOGNA  AND  THE  RUMP 
AT  TRENT.  PROROGATIONS  AND  POLITICAL  COMPLICATIONS. 
THE  INTERIM. 

Two  councils  instead  of  one — ^The  pope  says  nothing — Ninth  a^d  Tenth 
•  Sessions — All  is  brought  to  a  halt — Victories  of  Charles  V. — Paul  IlL 
allies  himself  with  France — Old  dotard — Protestation — "What  Rome 
has  read  at  all  times  in  the  hearts  of  her  friends  —  Fi*esh  protests  — 
New  mask — Mutual  affronts — ^Thunder  and  finesse — Fourteen  months 
already  lost — The  pope's  death  universally  expected  and  desired — 
The  Interim — Criticisms — Resistances — Conferences  resumed — Nun- 
cios sent  into  Germany — Their  powers — Checks  and  affronts. 

And  now,  behold,  we  have  two  councils  instead  of  one.  The 
bishops  that  remained  at  Trent  did  not  go  so  far  as  to  say  that 
they  were  authorized  to  continue  the  deliberations  by  themselves 
alone  ;  but  not  the  less  did  they  persist  in  considering  themselves 
as  the  true  council,  momentarily  suspended  for  want  of  a  suf- 
ficient number  of  members  present.  Those  at  Bologna,  with 
better  reason,  considered  themselves  as  the  lawful  council ;  but 
no  more  durst  they  on  that  account  do  anything,  well  knowing 
that  there  could  be  no  means  of  publishing  their  decisions  as  the 
decrees  of  a  general  council.  A  curious  correspondence  com- 
menced between  the  rival  assemblies.  The  Bologna  fathers 
intituled  themselves  plainly,  tlw  Holy  Council  of  Bologna 
{Sajwta  Synodiis  Bononicnsis)  ]  the  Tridentine  fathers  durst 
not  call  themselves  Council  of  Trent :  they  were  the  Holy 
Council,  in  whatever  'place  it  inay  he  (in  quocunque  sit  loco). 

Strange  to  say,  and  it  clearly  shews  how  false  the  position  of 
both  parties  was,  they  did  not  anathematize  one  another.  The 
divines  of  both  wrote  letters  upon  letters,  issued  memorials  and 
counter-memorials,  absolutely  as  if  it  were  some  philosophical  or 


188  HISTORY   OF   THE   COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  III. 

theological  dispute  that  had  to  be  brought  to  an  issue  between 
two  universities.  Neither  party  seemed  to  have  the  least  idea 
that  there  existed  a  judge. 

It  was  because  the  judge  was  still  more  embarrassed  than  the 
parties  were,  and  that  all  were  interested  in  not  pressing  him  to 
decide,  the  one  that  they  might  not  force  him  to  compromise 
himself,  the  other,  that  they  might  not  force  him  to  condemn 
them,  in  which  case,  unless  they  were  prepared  to  make  a  schism, 
they  would  certainly  have  had  rather  to  obey  him  than  the 
emperor.  In  point  of  law,  however,  he  had  no  need  to  sanction 
the  translation  in  order  to  its  being  and  remaining  legal ;  it  was 
enough  that  he  did  not  condemn  it.  But  he  was  well  aware 
that  Europe  expected  more  than  this  :  from  the  moment  that 
there  is  an  appeal  from  the  decision  of  raiinisters,  the  sovereign 
is  morally  bound  to  pronounce.  The  pope  was  so  much  the 
more  under  this  obligation,  as  his  bull  of  1545  made  no  mention 
of  any  consent  to  be  obtained  from  the  assembly  ;  had  the 
majority  voted  against  the  translation,  the  legates,  in  virtue  of 
that  bull,  might  still  have  commanded  it.  "  Of  our  own  move- 
ment," the  pope  had  said,  "of  our  certain  laiowledge,  and  in 
virtue  of  the  plentitude  of  the  apostolical  authority,  we  give  you 
a  full  and  free  power  and  faculty  to  transfer  the  council. "^ 
Thus  the  translation  had  been,  in  itself,  an  act  of  the  papal 
authority ;  how  then  could  they  shelter  themselves  logically  be- 
hind the  vote  of  the  assembly,  seeing  that,  according  to  the  bull, 
that  had  been  no  more  than  a  mere  formality  which  might  have 
been  dispensed  with  ?  On  the  other  hand,  the  bishops  who 
remained  at  Trent  kept  their  health  desperately  well ;  all  dread 
of  the  plague  had  disappeared  ;  and  as  that  had  been  the  sole 
reason  alleged  for  quitting  that  city,  there  was  no  longer  any  for 
not  returning  to  it. 

The  eighth  session  (which  had  become  the  ninth,  on  account 
of  the  j)^'o  re  7Utta  session  of  the  11th  of  March)  took  place  on 
the  day  that  had  been  fixed  (21st  April),  in  one  of  the  churches 
of  Bologna,  but  with  only  thirty-four  bishops.  No  decree  had 
been  prepared.  They  confined  themselves  to  confirming  that  of 
11th  March,  by  declaring  that  the  translation  had  been  voted 
for  reasons  "  then  instant,  urgent,  and  legitimate, "^  and  to  fixing 
the  following  session  for  the  2d  of  June. 

On  the  2d  of  June  another  session  met,  but  only  to  be  ad- 
journed to  the  15th  of  September.     It  was  wished,  said  the  de- 

^  "Motu  proprio  et  ex  certa  scientia  ac  de  apostolicaj  potestatis 
plenitudine,  transferendi  coneilii  plenam  et  liberam  concedimus  potes- 
tatem  et  facultatem." 

^  Ex  oausM  hmc  instantibus,  iirgentibus,  et  legitimis. 


Chap.  I.  1547.  INDEFINITE  ADJOURNMENT.  180 

cree,  "  to  shew  farther  indulgence  to  those  who  had  not  come."' 
Moreover,  nothing  was  ready.  There  had  been  held,  indeed,  in 
the  interval,  some  congregations  as  sequels  to  those  that  had  been 
held  at  Trent,  but  without  any  voting.  The  Eucharist  was  the 
subject  that  had  been  treated  of  in  these.  What  a  medley  I  How 
oddly  does  the  Eucharist  figure  in  this  labyrinth  of  intrigues  and 
deceptions  I 

The  loth  of  September,  in  fine,  was  doomed  to  be  no  more 
auspicious  than  the  2d  of  June.  News  arrived  of  the  tragical 
death  of  the  Duke  of  Placentia,  son  of  the  pope.  Universally 
despised  for  his  debaucheries,  and  hated  for  his  cruelty,  he  had 
been  murdered  in  his  own  palace  ;  his  body,  dragged  through 
the  streets,  had  been  subjected  to  the  most  disgraceful  outrages. 
Nor  was  this  all.  A  few  hours  after  the  murder,  the  governor 
of  Milan  had  entered  the  city  with  troops,  and  had  taken  pos- 
session of  it  in  the  name  of  the  emperor.  In  such  circumstances, 
how  could  a  session  be  held  ?  Besides,  as  on  the  2d  of  June, 
nothing  was  ready,  a  fact  that  manifestly  contradicts  Pallavi- 
cini's  assertion,  that  the  meetings  had  been  frequent  and  active  ; 
it  was  more  and  more  evident  that  the  members  did  not  yet  feel 
themselves  to  be  in  a  condition  to  vote  anything.  It  was  not 
even  thought  reasonable  to  have  a  public  meeting  of  the  mem- 
bers, or  to  fix  a  new  period.  The  legates  caused  an  indefinite 
adjournment  to  be  pronounced. 

The  occupation  of  Placentia  by  the  imperial  troops  was  con- 
nected with  occurrences,  for  a  short  summary  of  which  this  is 
the  proper  place. 

The  army  of  the  emperor  and  that  of  the  elector  of  Saxony 
had  met  on  the  24th  of  April.  The  elector  had  been  defeated 
and  taken  prisoner  ;  Charles  V.  had  sentenced  him  to  death  as  a 
rebel,  but  afterwards  spared  his  life.  The  electorate  had  passed 
to  his  cousin  Maurice,  a  Lutheran,  as  we  have  already  said  ; 
which  did  not  prevent  the  assembly  at  Bologna  from  paying  its 
court  to  the  emperor,  and  trying  to  mollify  him  on  the  subject 
of  the  translation,  by  chanting  a  Te  Deiim  in  honour  of  his 
victory.  The  landgrave  of  Hesse  had  submitted.  He  had  been 
left  under  the  impression  that  he  had  only  to  humble  himself  in 
order  to  obtain  forgiveness,  and  had  been  retained  as  a  prisoner. 
Charles  V.  now  became  absolute  master  of  Germany. 

Paul  III.,  therefore,  had  more  reason  than  ever  to  fear  him, 
and  to  fortify  himself  against  him  i^  all  the  more  as  Francis  I., 

^  Volens  tamen  cum  lis  qui  non  venerunt  etiam  adhuc  benigne  agerc. 

^  "Mendoza'.s  correspondence  with  his  coiu't,  during  tliese  contests, 
is  something  unheard  of.  Notliing  at  all  equals  tlie  tenor  of  those  let- 
ters.    They  shew  a  profound  hatred,  an  unutterable  contempt,  a  bitlor 


190  HISTORY    OF   THE    COUNCIL    OF  TRENT.  Book  Irt. 

the  only  man  in  a  condition  to  counterbalance  his  influence  in 
Europe,  had  died.  But  his  successor,  Henry  II.,  shewed  a  dis- 
position to  follow  in  his  father's  footsteps.  He  gave  a  favourable 
reception  to  all  the  overtures  sent  to  him  by  the  pope  ;  he 
promised  to  give  his  natural  daughter,  Diana,  then  nine  years 
old,  in  marriage  to  the  pope's  grandson  Horace  Farnese ;  in 
fine,  he  recognized  the  council  of  Bologna,  and  promised  to  send 
bishops  there.  The  pope  on  his  side  was  never  more  accom- 
modating. On  various  points  bearing  upon  the  collation  of  ben- 
efices, he  granted  the  king  several  things  contrary  to  the  regu- 
lations of  the  last  session.  An  early  public  specimen  this  of  the 
manner  in  which  he  meant  to  be  executor  of  the  assembly's 
decisions. 

Meanwhile,  the  emperor,  after  having  openly  approved  and 
encouraged  the  bishops  that  had  staid  at  Trent,  had  thought 
himself  obliged  to  seek  a  reconciliation,  if  not  with  the  pope, 
whom  he  treated  as  an  old  dotard,  at  least  with  the  Church. 
He  could  think  of  nothing  better  for  this  end,  than  to  establish 
the  Inquisition  at  Naples.  A  sedition  arose  ;  the  Spaniards 
narrowly  escaped  being  chased  out  of  the  kingdom,  and  the  em- 
peror had  to  yield.  Of  what  consequence  was  the  Inquisition 
to  him  ?  He  had  merely  wanted  to  perform  an  act  of  Roman 
Catholicism.     The  act  was  done  ;  Paul  had  to  pay  the  cost. 

The  diet  (1st  September)  had  been  opened  at  Augsburg. 
There  the  emperor  bitterly  represented  the  uselessness  of  his  ef- 
forts for  the  pacification  of  Europe  by  means  of  a  council ;  then, 
after  having  wrested  from  the  Protestants  a  promise  to  submit  to 
it  as  soon  as  it  resumed  the  course  of  its  deliberations,  he  caused 
a  letter  to  be  addressed  to  the  pope  by  the  prelates  in  the  diet, 
"  commencing,"  says  Pallavicini,  "  with  a  honied  prayer,  and 
ending  with  the  sting  of  a  menacing  protest."  It  was  with  pro- 
found surprise,  said  the  prelates,  that  they  had  heard  of  the 
translation ;  and  they  represented  it  in  plam  terms  as  annihila- 
ting the  authority  of  the  assembly.  In  fact,  they  were  right,  and 
the  inaction  of  the  Bologna  Fathers  proved  it  better  than  any- 
thing else  could  have  done ;  but  it  was  nevertheless  a  curious 
spectacle — that  of  a  council  becoming  a  nullity  in  the  eyes  of 
the  prelates  of  a  great  nation,  by  the  mere  fact  of  its  having 
passed  into  a  city  that  belonged  to  the  head  of  the  Church. 

It  would,  then,  be  a  curious  subject  also  for  the  historian  to 
trace  the  distrust  which  the  most  Roman  Catholic  sovereigns 
have  at  aU  times  shewed  they  have  felt  towards  the  court  of 

ness  which  reflection  strives  to  soften,  and  onl}-  makes  more  bitter;  a 
distrust,  in  fine,  which  one  wouhl  hardl}'  expect  to  see  the  like  of  be- 
tween the  worst  criminals." — Ranke,  History  of  the  Popedom. 


Chap.  1.  1547.        CATHOLIC    KINGS    SUSPICIOUS   OF   ROME.  I'Jl 

Home.     Charles  V.  and  his  people,  in  this  instance,  merely  ex- 
pressed, only  a  little  more  frankly  than  others,  because  they  felt 
themselves  stronger,  what  the  popes  have  read,  or  to  speak  more 
correctly,  what  they  continue  to  read  in  the  hearts  of  all  their 
crowned  friends,  nothing  in  this  respect  having  changed.     You 
will  hear  every  day  complaints,  and  cries  of  indignation,  and  of 
scandal,  against  the  few  trammels  to  which  the  French  law 
subjects  the  relations  of  the  Roman  Church  with  its  head ;  as  if 
France,  forsooth,  were  the 'only  country  where  the  pope  is  not 
trusted.     Distrust  is  more  candidly  expressed  there,  that  is  all. 
Elsewhere,  it  is  a  very  different  thing.     Governments  that  are 
most  Roman  Catholic,  are  most  severe  as  respects  their  bishops, 
and  the  most  suspicious  on  the  side  of  Rome.     In  France,  a 
bishop  may  publish  all  that  he  thinks  fit ;  he  is  afterwards  sub- 
ject, and  then  only  for  his  official  acts,  to  the  harmless  jurisdic- 
tion of  the  council  of  state.     In  Austria,  in  Piedmont,  in  Tus- 
cany, in  several  other  states  in  Germany  and  Italy,  he  could  not 
publish  a  line,  either  as  bishop,  or  simply  as  author,  without 
having  submitted  it  beforehand  to  the  government's  censors. 
In  France,  the  official  communications  of  the  clergy  with  the 
pope,  must  pass  through  the  muiister  of  religious  worship,  but 
there  is  nothing  to  prevent  the  bishops  from  having  inofficially 
as  many  relations  with  Rome  as  they  think  proper  ;  in  the  states 
we  have  just  named  all  correspondence,  even  private,  if  not  in- 
terdicted, is  at  least  sedulously  watched.     As  for  the  receiving 
of  briefs  from  the  popes,  these  governments  hold  themselves  no 
less  entitled  than  others,  to  give  or  refuse  leave  to  publish  them. 
There  was  a  great  outcry  quite  lately  against  the  King  of  Prussia 
for  having  interdicted  his  Roman  Catholic  subjects  from  study- 
ing theology  at  Rome  ;  yet  he  did  nothing  more  than  several 
Roman  Catholic  princes,  even  Italians,  had  done  before.     What 
would  the  ultramontanists  of  Paris  say,  were  the  government 
to  think  of  taking  a  saint  out  of  the  breviary  ?     The  Austrian 
government  removed  from  it  Gregory  VII.     Of  course  we  do  not 
equally  approve  all  the  measures  mentioned  above.     We  do  not 
like  to  see  a  bishop  subjected,  in  his  most  insignificant  acts,  to 
the  humiliating  yoke  of  the  police  ;  we  merely  quote  facts,  and 
say,  See  what — under  these  fair  shows  of  union  and  filial  sub- 
mission— are  the  real  relations  of  Roman  Catholicity  with  its 
chief;  see  what  is  the  confidence  that  the  pope  inspires  in  the 
governments  which  make  most  use  of  his  name,  on  the  other 
hand,  in  all  that  ministers  to  their  projects  or  their  ambition. 

Paul  III.  had,  however,  neglected  nothing  in  his  preparations 
to  meet  the  menacing  attitude  assumed  by  the  emperor's  pre- 
lates.    He  had  gone  so  far  as  to  offer  to  proclaim  him  king  of 


192  HISTORY   OF  THE   COUNCIL  OF  TRENT  Book  lU. 

England,  and  even  to  furnish  him  with  troops  for  the  conquest 
of  that  kingdom,  held  as  it  was,  to  have  been  vacant  since  the 
excommunication  of  Henry  VIIl. ;  but  it  was  too  palpably  evi- 
dent that  the  wily  old  man  thought  mainly  of  keeping  him  at  a 
distance,  and  distracting  his  attention.  Accordingly,  the  emperor 
replied  only  by  sending  Cardinal  Madrucci,  the  bishop  of  Trent, 
to  Rome,  anew  to  solicit  the  return  of  the  council  to  that  city. 
The  cardinal,  on  his  arrival,  obtained  an  excellent  reception  from 
the  pope,  but  was  left  without  any  explanation.  He  was  only 
permitted  to  state  to  the  consistory  the  object  of  his  mission. 
On  the  9th  of  December,  in  presence  of  the  cardinals,  Madrucci 
solemnly  restated  his  request.  It  was  in  the  name  of  God,  he 
said,  in  the  name  of  the  emperor,  in  the  name  of  the  empire,  in 
the  name  of  all  the  friends  of  religion,  that  he  besought  the  pope 
to  send  back  the  bishops  from  Bologna  to  Trent ;  he  craved,  also, 
that  it  might  be  decided  whether  it  was  to  the  cardinals,  or  to 
the  council,  that  the  election  of  the  new  pope  should  belong,  in 
the  event  of  the  see  becoming  vacant.^  This  was  plainly  enough 
to  recall  to  the  pope's  recollection — what  ?  The  eighty  years  of 
his  by-past  life,  and  the  account  that  he  would  soon  have  to  give 
to  God  ?  Alas  I  religious  ideas  had  not  habitually  much  to  do 
in  all  this.  All  that  was  intended,  was  to  attack  Paul  IH.  on 
his  weak  side,  by  giving  him  to  understand  that  ere  long  he 
would  not  be  in  a  condition  to  guard  his  children  from  tbe  wrath 
of  the  emperor.  But  there  was  something  which  Paul  HI.  loved 
more  than  his  children,  more  even  than  himself;  it  was  the  om- 
nipotence of  the  Holy  See.  The  question  had  grown  more  and 
more  into  importance,  in  his  eyes,  in  proportion  as  the  emperor 
pressed  his  suit,  and  had  affronted  him  by  what  he  had  caused 
his  prelates  to  do.  Placentia,  even  Placentia,  which  he  had 
kept,  "  as  a  loadstone  held  in  his  hand  for  the  purpose  of  attract- 
ing the  iron  soul  of  the  pope,"^  no  longer  influenced  him.  On 
no  account  would  he  consent  to  the  return  to  Trent ;  but  as  his 
courage  could  not  embolden  him  to  avow  what  would  have  imme- 
diately caused  a  schism,  it  was  impossible  to  wrest  an  answer 
from  him  by  prayers,  threats,  anything.  The  cardinal  set  ofi  on 
his  return  to  Germany,  leaving  the  matter  in  the  hands  of  Diego 
de  Mendoza,  formerly  ambassador  to  the  council,  and  now  charged 
with  the  same  functions  at  the  court  of  the  pope.  A  few  days 
after,  Mendoza  again  set  forth  all  the  emperor's  grievances,  and 
all  his  demands.     Without  protesting  as  yet,  he  stated  that  he 

^  Several  of  these  details,  denied  by  Pallavicini,  have  seemed  to  us 
sufficiently  proved  by  the  testimonies  of  other  authors,  and  particular- 
ly Raj-naldus,  Sleidan,  and  De  Thou,  in  accordance  with  Paul  Sarpi. 

^  Pallavicini,  Book  x.  cli.  vil. 


Chap.  I.  1543  PRDTLST   OF   THE    EMPEROR  193 

had  orders  to  protest,  however  httle  tho  pope  might  delay  grant- 
ing satisraction. 

Then  it  was  that  Paul  III.,  raising  the  mask,  or,  if  you  will, 
changing  the  mask,  thought  fit  to  act  a  part  which  we  have  seen 
him  long  preparing  for  ;  and  this  was  to  treat  the  afiair  as  that 
of  a  controversy  between  the  two  assemblies.  He  thus  with- 
drew, as  it  were,  from  being  a  party  in  the  quarrel,  and  assumed 
the  air  of  one  who  was  influenced  only  by  respect  for  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  council  and  the  wish  of  the  majority ;  in  fine, 
he  gained  time. 

His  first  step  in  this  new  path  was  to  say  that  he  could  give 
no  decision  wdthout  having  first  advised  with  the  bishops  at 
Bologna.  The  question  was  about  to  stand  more  and  more  on 
false  ground,  as  both  parties  were  now  to  quit  their  original 
position.  Charles  V.  reclaimed  on  the  ground  of  what  was  fit- 
ting and  necessary,  and  the  assembly  was  to  reply  on  the  ground 
of  right. 

It  did  reply,  in  fact,  as  might  have  been  expected,  that  it 
considered  itself,  and  could  not  but  consider  itself,  the  only  legi- 
timate assembly.  "Without  absolutely  rejecting  the  idea  of  a  re- 
turn to  Trent,  it  declared  that  the  only  Avay  to  obtain  a  reversal 
of  the  decision  it  had  taken  was  for  the  bishops  at  Trent,  in  the 
first  place,  to  submit  to  that  decision,  and  to  come  to  Bologna, 
or,  at  least,  to  declare  their  readiness  to  come.  Then,  but  only 
then,  it  might  be  considered  what  was  best  to  be  done. 

This  answer  in  itself  had  nothing  in  it  unreasonable  ;  but  to 
be  satisfied  with  it  one  would  have  required  to  forget  that  it  Avas 
dictated  by  the  pope,  that  the  prelates  of  Bologna  had  no  desire 
to  return  to  Trent,  and  that,  in  fine,  there  was  hardly  any  hope 
of  the  council  ever  being  seen  there  again.  Charles  V.,  how- 
ever, seemed  ready  to  accept  the  question  in  its  new  terms,  but 
only,  as  was  his  custom,  in  order  that  he  might  decide  it  accord- 
ing to  his  own  views.  Taking,  therefore,  the  Bologna  assembly 
directly  in  hand  as  the  party  in  fault,  he  ordained  the  two  agents 
who  acted  for  him  there,  Francis  Yargas  and  Martin  Yelasco,  to 
use,  without  delay,  the  po\yers  with  which  they  had  been  in- 
vested, but  the  nature  of  which  was  still  unknown.  Conse- 
quently, on  the  26th  of  January,  1548,  they  craved  an  audience. 
The  case  was  taken  into  consideration,  and  Avas  referred  by  the 
assembly  to  Cardinal  del  Monte,  the  only  legate  present,  for  his 
colleajrue  was  at  Rome.  Del  Monte  caused  them  to  be  intro- 
duced,  and  they  presented  their  mandate,  "  Constrained  to  pro- 
test, for  the  good  of  religion  and  of  the  Church,  against  certain 
men  calling  themselves  apostolic  legates,  and  against  a  certain 
assembly  intituling  itself  Council,  the  emperor  has  named,  and 

I 


194  HISTORY    OF  THE   COUNCIL  OF  TRENT.  Book  III. 

names,  for  the  purpose  of  acting  on  his  behalf,  the  two  personages 
here  present."^  And  not  content  with  this  insulting  introduc- 
tion, the  envoys  demanded  that  admission  should  be  granted  to 
five  witnesses  and  two  notaries,  whom  they  had  brought  with 
them  in  order  that  their  protest  might  be  minuted  in  due  form. 
The  assembly  again  deliberated  ;  it  was  voted  that  they  should 
be  put  ofi'  till  next  day.  But  they  insisted,  and  after  some 
parleying  the  assembly  yielded  the  point.  Only,  before  giving 
them  an  audience,  a  minute  was  intimated  to  them,  bearing  that 
they  should  not  be  held  bomid  to  listen  to  them,  inasmuch  as  it 
was  not  as  the  council  that  the  emperor  addressed  them,  but 
as  a  certain  unlawful  assembly  which  sm'ely  w^as  not  that  of 
Bologna.  Then  Vargas,  before  coming  to  the  protest,  warmly 
exhorted  the  assembly,  as  he  uniformly  called  it,  to  ponder  well 
what  it  was  about  to  say  or  do.  And  on  his  calling  out,  "  Here 
we  are,  we,  the  lawful  procurators  of  the  emperor  !"  "I  too," 
said  the  cardinal,  "  I  am  here,  the  true  legate  of  a  true  and  in- 
dubitable pontiff,  and  here  is  a  lawful  council,  lawfully  trans- 
ferred, for  the  glory  of  God  and  the  good  of  the  Church  I"  The 
glory  of  God  and  the  good  of  the  Church,  grand  words  these, 
w^hich,  however,  for  the  preceding  thirty  years,  people  had  known 
how  to  estimate  at  their  proper  value  ;  but,  for  all  that,  Del 
Monte  had  incontestably  the  finest  part  to  play.  Those  legates, 
rendered  illegitimate  for  having  made  use  of  powers  manifestly 
legitimate,  that  council,  ceasing  to  be  a  council  because  it  had 
pronounced  against  the  opinion  of  fourteen  of  its  own  members — 
all  this  reminded  one  rather  of  the  rude  unmannerliness  of  a 
soldier  than  of  the  dignity  of  a  prince. 

With  a  greater  show  of  reason  and  more  calm,  the  written 
protest,  which  Yelasco  then  read,  was  hardly  more  logical.  After 
a  long  picture  of  all  that  Charles  V.  had  done  in  order  to  prepare 
for  and  facilitate  the  council,  the  translation  was  declared  un- 
reasonable, precipitate,  null ;  the  recommendation  of  the  assembly 
in  virtue  of  which  it  had  taken  place,  was  called  deceptive,  vain, 
captious,  infinitely  worthy  of  being  rejected  by  the  pope.  How, 
then,  did  the  pope  dare,  it  went  on  to  say,  to  give  to  that 
culpable  division  the  name  of  translation,  to  that  illegitimate 
assembly  the  name  of  council-general  ?  The  emperor  declared, 
in  fine,  to  the  bishops,  that  he  w^ould  thenceforth  hold  them 
responsible  for  all  the  evils  that  might  occur,  and  from  wdiich  he 
was  about  to  look  for  the  means  of  guaranteeing  his  states. 

The  oral  reply  was  full  of  spirit ;  the  written  one  extremely 
mild.     It  was  jDublished  four  days  afterwards.     It  contained  but 
one  sentence  :  "  The  things  alleged  are  manifestly  in  disaccord- 
'  All  these  last  details  are  taken  from  Pi^llavicini. 


Chap.  I.  1M8.  REPLY   OF    THE   POPE.  195 

ancc  M'ith  the  pious  and  Catholic  intention  of  tlie  most  invincible 
emperor,  the  holy  council  is  convinced  that  they  have  been  spoken 
either  without  any  mandate  on  his  part,  or  upon  a  false  exposi- 
tion of  the  case  to  him." 

Yet  never  did  the  emperor  seem  less  in  a  way  to  amend  his 
doings.  A  week  after  the  delivery  of  the  Bologna  protest,  Men- 
doza  reproduced  it  at  Rome,  in  full  consistory,  before  the  pope. 
The  same  ideas,  the  same  forms,  except  that  the  ambassador 
threw  himself  upon  his  knees,  an  action  that  threw  into  si  ill 
stronger  relief  the  incredible  audaciousness  of  what  he  said. 
"  Let  any  one  figure  to  himself,"  says  Pallavicini,  "  the  terror 
of  such  auditors,  met  in  so  large  a  number,  in  the  most  august 
court  in  the  universe,  at  the  noise  of  this  thunder-clap,  launched 
by  a  Jupiter  who  had  the  lightning  in  his  hand." 

The  only  refuge  of  Paul  III.  now  lay  in  the  last  part  of  the 
course  which  we  have  said  ho  had  resolved  to  pursue.  JSome 
days  after  Mendoza's  protest  he  sent  for  him  to  come  to  the  con- 
sistory. The  ambassador  found  him  apparently  more  calm,  and 
his  manner  more  natural  than  ever.  The  reply,  written,  it  is 
said,  by  Cardinal  Pole,  was  read  by  the  pope's  secretary,  the 
bishop  of  Foligno.  It  was  not  less  than  five-and-twenty  pages 
long,  but,  from  the  first,  it  was  clear  what  the  pope  wished  to 
come  to.  According  to  him,  then,  the  whole  affair  had  been  a 
mistake.  The  emperor's  protest  was  not  meant  to  be  read  eX' 
cept  in  the  case  of  his,  the  pope's,  refusing  to  take  cognizance  of 
the  difference  that  had  arisen  beticixt  Ids  majesty  and  the 
cmmcit  of  Bolog7ia.  But  he  had  not  refused  ;  he  was  ready  to 
do  this,  and  had  even  appointed  four  cardinals  to  present  to  him  a 
report  on  that  subject.  Accordingly,  he  had  not  to  reply  to  the 
protest.  He  only  regretted  that  the  terms  of  it  should  have  been 
so  severe,  but  he  was  not  the  less  sensible  of  the  zeal  of  the  em- 
peror. He  Avas  happy,  in  particular,  to  see  so  great  a  prince 
openly  recognise  in  him  the  quality  of  sovereign  judge  in  this 
affair.  He  ended  by  saying  that  he  was  about  to  interdict  both 
assemblies  from  proceeding  to  any  synodical  acts,  and  that  they 
should  have  a  month  for  submitting  their  reasons  to  him. 

Upon  this,  although  Mcndoza  went  away  declaring  that  he 
had  been  made  to  say  what  was  quite  different  from  what  he 
had  really  said,  and  quite  different  from  what  the  emperor  had 
expressly  charged  him  to  say — Paul  wrote  to  the  bishops  at 
Trent  that  he  was  ready  to  hear  what  they  had  to  say  for  them- 
selves. Hitherto,  he  said,  he  had  regarded  the  translation  as 
good,  judging  the  matter  according  to  the  public  rumour ;  but 
since  that  point  had  been  called  in  question,  he  was  now  pre- 
pared to  act  only  as  an  impartial  judge,  hstening  to  the  state- 


196  HISTORY   OF   THE    COUNCIL    OK   TRENT.  Book.  III. 

ments  of  all  parties,  and  carefully  weighing  the  reasons  pro  and 
con.  This  impartiahty  at  the  end  of  a  whole  year,  this  pro- 
found disinterestedness  in  an  affair  in  which  he  was  known  to 
be  so  much  interested,  this  curious  allegation  that  hitherto  he 
had  not  looked  narrowly  into  it,  all  this,  in  a  less  serious  docu- 
ment, would  almost  have  tempted  one  to  ask  if  he  was  not  in- 
dulging a  little  jocularity.  Accordingly,  he  received  in  return 
only  an  ambiguous  reply,  in  which,  without  contesting  the  char- 
acter he  assumed  of  judge,  any  appearance  of  pleading  before 
him  was  studiously  avoided.  The  letter  of  the  bishops  was,  in 
short,  only  an  urgent  request  that  he  would  disapprove  of  the 
translation. 

Those  at  Bologna,  also  invited  to  plead  their  cause,  were  more 
clear,  but  quite  as  disquieting.  They  had  come  at  last  to  take 
up  the  matter  seriously.  Strong  in  their  legal  position,  they 
pleaded  with  precision  and  directness.  They  pressed,  they  al- 
most summoned  the  pope  to  justify  them  ;  but,  as  there  was  no 
pleading  on  the  other  side,  the  case  was  no  longer  a  process  be- 
fore a  judge,  and  Paul  no  longer  felt  himself  to  be  a  judge  in  the 
sense  in  which  he  thought  it  of  so  much  consequence  to  be  one. 
The  month  had  for  some  time  been  rmi  out ;  less  than  ever  had 
he  any  wish  to  pronounce  a  decision. 

Meanwhile,  another  year  (1548)  had  come  romid,  and  it  was 
now  about  the  close  of  April.  The  council  had  been  interrupted 
for  fourteen  months. 

Germany  was  now  comiected  by  a  mere  thread  with  Rome, 
and  the  pope  still  found  means  to  negotiate  with  the  emperor  for 
the  restitution  of  Placentia.  Charles  first  eluded,  and  then  re- 
fused. Fresh  solicitations  were  followed  by  fresh  refusals.  Paul 
at  last  spoke  of  excommunicating,  not  the  emperor,  he  durst  not 
do  that,  but  those  ivho  occupied  the  city,  as  if  those  who  occu- 
pied the  city  were  not  there  for  the  emperor.  At  the  same  time 
he  was  secretly  laying  the  foundations  of  a  league  against  him. 
But  the  Venetians,  on  whom  he  had  counted  much,  gave  it  to 
be  understood  that  they  did  not  care  to  ally  themselves  with  so 
old  a  pope.  His  successor  might  have  other  views,  and  leave 
the  empire  on  their  hands.  The  king  of  France,  says  Pallavicini, 
was  a  little  desirous  "  to  embark  on  so  worn  out  a  vessel." 
Thus  there  was  neither  excommunication  nor  war. 

Charles,  on  his  side,  began  to  see  that  he  could  obtain  no- 
thing. He  contented  himself,  therefore,  with  waiting  for  the 
death  of  the  pope,  an  event  that  had  long  been  spoken  of  as  the 
only  thing  likely  to  unravel  so  many  entanglements.  But  as 
Paul  ni.  was  still  almost  as  vigorous  in  body  as  he  was  in  mind, 
it  was  of  importance  to  the  pacification  of  Germany  that  so  many 


Chap.  I.  1548.      THE   INTERIM— IT  PLEASES   NO   PARTY.  197 

questions  should  not  remain  in  suspense.      Charles  had  not  re- 
linquished the  chimera  ol'  bringing  back  luiity  by  means  of  a 
council.     He  did  not  seem  to  be  sensible  of  the  absurdity  in- 
volved in  the  promise  wrested  anew  from  the  Protestants,  to  re- 
ceive the  decrees  that  were  to  come,  after  they  had  repelled 
those  that  were  already  published  ;  and  though,  as  is  most  prob- 
able, he  might  not  think  that  that  promise  was  ever  to  be  real- 
ized  as  respected  doctrines,  he  attached  to  it,  politically,  im- 
mense importance.     As  long  as  it  subsisted,  as  long  as  tlie  pos- 
sibility of  a  reconciliation  was  admitted,  or  seemed  to  be  ad- 
mitted, the  rending  was  not  complete,  the  empire  might  still  be 
one  whole.     But  that  promise,  it  was  clear,  once  that  the  coun- 
cil was  broken  up,  and  the  idea  of  a  council  definitively  aban- 
doned, would  be  considered  no  more  binding  on  those  who  had 
made  it.     A  German  council  would  not  have  served  any  good 
purpose.     The  emperor  had  often  threatened  the  pope  with  it ; 
but  betAvixt  the  Protestants  and  him,  it  was  a  council-general 
that  had  been  ever  talked  of.     He  took  it  into  his  head,  therefore, 
to  publish  a  decree  in  which  all  the  points  in  litigation  should 
be  regulated  provisionally ;    Roman  Catholics  and  Protestants 
should  remain  subject  to  it  until  the  resumption  of  the  council. 
Hence  the  name  of  Interim  by  which  that  act  is  known  in 
history. 

There  was  something  singular  in  the  idea  of  regulating  pro- 
visionally what  of  all  things  seems  to  have  the  least  of  a  provis- 
ional character  in  it — articles  of  faith.  But  if  the  Interim  com- 
prised important  concessions,  such  as  the  marriage  of  priests  and 
the  communion  under  both  kinds,  there  were  many  points,  also, 
on  which  Charles  V.  could  make  no  concession  without  lending 
a  hand  to  the  subversion  of  Romanism.  With  regard  to  these 
last,  then,  there  was  concession  only  in  the  fiict  of  their  being 
represented  as  only  provisional ;  but  that  of  itself  was  still  an 
insult  to  the  Church,  an  insult  to  the  pope,  for  there  were  few 
of  them  that  were  not  of  long  standing  as  articles  of  faith,  or 
that  a  Roman  Catholic  was  free  to  regard  as  not  definitively 
regulated. 

The  result,  accordingly,  was  what  any  one  might  expect :  no- 
body was  satisfied.  Those  bishops  even  that  were  most  devoted 
to  the  emperor  could  not  dissemble  to  themselves  that  he  had 
far  overstept  the  reasonable  limits  of  the  civil  power.  As  a 
prince,  he  had  the  power  of  allowing  the  Protestants  to  remain 
free  :  to  make  a  selection  of  what  they  were  to  believe  and  not 
to  believe,  to  concede  some  points  to  them  while  he  withheld 
others,  was  tantamount  to  setting  up  as  pope,  and  without  ceas- 
ing to  profess  being  a  Roman  Cathohc,  to  do  just  what  Henry 


198  HISTORY   OF  THE    COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  III. 

VIII.  had  done  in  ceasing  to  "be  one.  Moreover,  those  who 
drew  up  the  decree  had  not  even  restrained  themselves  so  far  as 
exactly  to  follow  the  canons  passed  at  Trent ;  the  chapter  on 
Justification,  in  particular,  seemed  as  if  it  had  been  Avritten  by 
Luther.  What  signified  those  appeals  to  a  future  council,  seeing 
the  decrees  of  a  quite  recent  council  were  treated  as  null  and 
void  ?  Did  the  emperor  intend,  then,  that  those  very  decrees 
should  be  revised  ?  This  was  impossible,  it  was  said — it  was 
absurd,  for  he  himself  had  owned  the  legality,  and  consequently 
the  infallibility  of  the  assembly,  as  long  as  it  had  not  quitted 
Trent.  And  if  Roman  Catholics  spoke  thus  in  Germany,  under 
the  very  hand  of  Charles  Y.,  what  was  to  be  expected  in  Italy  ? 

While  he  alienated  the  Roman  Catholics,  what  had  he  gained 
among  the  Protestants  ?  Nothing,  or  almost  nothing.  Though 
the  Interim  might  gratify  them  as  paving  the  way  for  a  rupture 
with  the  pope,  they  saw  nothing  in  it,  at  bottom,  to  satisfy  them. 
What  were  those  few  concessions  which  the  emperor  had  made 
them,  in  comparison  with  what  he  had  lacked  either  the  will  or 
the  power  to  concede  ?  The  marriage  of  the  priests  did  not  rec- 
oncile them  to  the  supremacy  of  the  pope  ;  leave  to  communi- 
cate under  both  kinds,  did  not  make  it  more  easy  for  them  to  be- 
lieve in  the  mass,  the  seven  sacraments,  the  invocation  of  saints, 
and  many  other  things  necessarily  preserved  in  the  Interim.  In 
fine,  they  knew  that  the  Church  would  never  recognise  in  the 
emperor  the  right  which  he  had  arrogated  to  himself,  and  they 
could  not  feel  much  obliged  to  him  for  giving  them  that  which 
it  did  not  belong  to  him  to  give  at  all. 

All  eyes  were  now  turned  to  Rome.  A  terrible  explosion  was 
expected,  and  the  emperor  probably  was  not  one  ot"  those  who 
were  least  disquieted.  He  had  interfered  in  matters  of  faith  ; 
he  had  not  even  respected  the  lawful  decisions  of  the  council ; 
he  might  be  excommunicated  without  a  single  sincere  and  con- 
sistent Roman  Catholic  having  the  means  of  declaring  for  him, 
and  excommunication  would  have  pushed  him  straight  to  either 
a  humiliating  retractation  or  to  a  schism.  But  side  by  side  with 
these  audacities  in  doctrine,  the  Interim  contained  all  the  ele- 
ments of  a  violent  ruptiA'c.  The  eleven  articles  of  the  Spaniards 
at  Trent  had  been  incorporated  into  it,  almost  word  for  word 
Episcopal  authority  was  declared  in  it  to  be  of  divine  right ;  the 
pope  was  recognised  in  it  as  head  of  the  Church,  only  in  the 
character  of  its  chief  magistrate,  necessary  for  its  unity,  as  the 
king  is  in  a  kingdom,  but  not  absolutely  necessary  and  such  as 
the  Church  cannot  exist  without  him — whereas,  in  the  papal  or 
ultramontane  system,  the  pope  is  the  base,  the  corner -stone,  the 
source  of  all  power. 


Chap.  I    lil^     TlIK   INTERIM    LEFT  TO    DESTROY   1T.*SEJ.I\  1 '"J 

It  was  the  pope,  nevertheless,  wlio,  notwithstanding  so  many 
subjects  of  complaint,  kept  his  temper  best,  and  best  understood 
how  matters  were  situated.  Were  it  for  us  to  judge  him  from 
the  Roman  Catholic  point  of  view,  we  should  say  that  it  was 
his  duty  to  excommunicate  the  emperor  ;  we  might  find  ground 
to  charge  him  with  treason  towards  the  Holy  ISee,  in  maintain' 
ing  an  obstinate  silence  after  so  many  aggressions.  But,  polit 
ically,  the  future  was  to  justify  him.  He  could  see  that  the 
Interim  must  eventually  destroy  itself.  The  best  punishment 
he  could  inflict  on  the  emperor  was  to  leave  him  to  look  on,  as 
his  own  work  went  to  ruin,  and  to  let  him  enjoy  the  renown  of 
having  laboured  in  behalf  of  heretics,  without  having  obtained 
anything  from  them  in  return. 

It  was  from  them,  in  fact,  that  the  resistance  especially  came. 
The  emperor  having  declared,  in  the  preamble  of  the  decree, 
that  he  did  not  intend  either  to  adopt  himself,  or  to  compel  any 
one  to  adopt  the  doctrines  that  had  been  modified  from  defer- 
ence to  the  Protestants,  the  Interim  obliged  the  Roman  Catho- 
lics to  nothing ;  it  was  only  in  theory  that  they  could  be  dis- 
satisfied with  it ;  but  as  for  the  reformed,  they  either  openly 
repulsed  it,  or  obeyed  it  only  in  matters  of  form  and  with  a 
repugnance  which  they  did  not  even  seek  to  dissemble.  Fred- 
erick of  Saxony,  although  a  prisoner,  obstinately  refused  to  sub- 
mit to  it ;  many  towns  submitted  to  it  only  undei  threats  of 
war  and  ruin.  It  is  true  that  Charles  V.  did  not  insist  on  peo- 
ple declaring  that  they  were  convinced  of  the  truth  of  all  that 
was  taught  in  his  decree.  Provided  they  re-established  the 
Roman  forms,  the  mass,  images,  &c.,  he  carried  his  inquiries  no 
farther  ;  but  those  forms  which  some  viewed,  or  affected  to  view 
as  indifferent,  were  not  the  less  for  many  others  an  idolatry  in 
which  their  conscience  forbade  them  to  take  any  part. 

Add  to  this  the  embarrassment  created  in  the  midst  of  Roman 
Catholic  populations,  by  the  reformatory  decree  published  along 
with  the  Interim.^  As  long  as  nothing  more  was  attempted 
than  the  putting  upon  paper,  out  of  spite  for  the  pope,  a  host  of 
reforms  hitherto  refused  by  the  court  of  Rome,  the  emperor  had 
only  to  congratulate  himself  on  the  zeal  and  docility  of  his 
bishops ;  but  speaking  and  doing  are  difierent  things,  especially 
when  one  has  to  give  an  example  at  his  OM'n  cost  of  the  thing 
he  has  been  lauding.  Moreover,  not  a  single  step  could  be 
taken  without  obstacles  occurring  which  the  pope  alone  could 
remove,  and  which  could  not  have  been  overthrown,  without  by 
the  same  blow  snapping  the  last  tie  of  connexion  with  Rome. 
There  was  a  prevailing  conviction  that  all  that  people  might 

1  2d  July,  1548. 


200  HISTORY   OF   THE   COUNCIL    OF  TRENT.  Book  III. 

attempt  to  build  must  be  founded  on  sand,  unless  the  pope  were 
to  concur  in  laying  the  foundations ;  all  that  they  sought  to 
destroy  was  found  to  rest  on  papal  regulations,  or  on  papal  dis- 
pensations, and  without  a  nipture  with  the  pope  how  could 
either  be  annulled  ?  After  many  tentative  efforts  the  emperor 
saw  that  without  his  aid  nothing  could  be  done.  That  aid  he 
caused  him  to  be  asked  to  grant.  Of  the  Interim,  as  may  be 
believed,  not  a  word  was  said  ;  the  pope  was  presumed  to  know 
nothing  about  it.  It  was  only  in  the  carr\'ing  out  of  some  dis- 
ciplinary reforms  that  he  was  besought  to  lend  his  assistance. 

Happy  at  this  return,  and  very  sure  of  gaining  something  by 
it,  the  pope  was  in  no  haste  to  accede  to  the  emperor's  desire. 
This  was  not  only,  it  is  true,  in  order  to  enhance  the  value  of 
the  service  to  be  rendered  ;  among  the  reforms  in  which  his 
concurrence  was  wanted,  there  was  more  than  one  which  he 
was  by  no  means  anxious  to  see  accomplished.  Hence  there 
arose  a  negotiation  between  the  emperor  and  Peter  Bertano, 
bishop  of  Fano,  and  nuncio  at  the  imperial  court.  In  fine, 
Pliul  consented ;  but  it  soon  came  to  be  seen  in  what  sense  he 
had  put  himself  at  the  service  of  the  imperial  will. 

In  the  first  place,  instead  of  the  two  legates  whom  the  em- 
peror had  asked  for,  he  contented  himself  with  sending  two  nun- 
cios. This  was  no  more,  in  reality,  than  a  difTerence  of  names, 
but  sometimes  there  is  a  great  deal  in  a  name.  A  legate  is  the 
representative  of  the  pope  ;  he  is  as  it  were  pope  himself  A 
nuncio  is  no  more  than  an  envoy,  an  agent,  an  ordinary  ambas- 
sador ;  in  most  instances  he  is  but  a  simple  bishop,  whereas  the 
legate  is  always  a  cardinal.  There  were  two  bishops,  therefore, 
Lippomani,  coadjutor  of  Yerona,  and  Pighini,  bishop  of  Feren- 
tino,  who  were  added  to  Bertano. 

They  arrived  in  Germany  with  a  bull  in  which  there  was 
scarcely  a  word  said  about  the  reforms  decreed  by  the  emperor, 
and  the  co-operation  for  which  he  had  applied.  The  pope  pre- 
tended that  he  had  understood  nothing  more  to  have  been  asked 
of  him  than  the  means  only  of  re-opening  the  Church  to  those 
who  should  present  themselves  with  a  view  to  re-admission.  He 
had  confined  himself  therefore  to  investing  the  three  nuncios 
with  power  to  take  off  every  kind  of  excommunication  and  cen- 
sures, even  for  the  offence  of  bigamy,  said  the  bull ;  an  ingenious 
method  of  accrediting  the  old  falsehood  that  bigamy  was  one  of 
the  tilings  sanctioned  by  the  Reformation.  For  the  rest  the  pope 
had  not  confined  himself  to  perfidious  insinuations ;  the  bull 
exhibited,  on  some  other  points,  an  alarming  frankness.  The 
nuncios  might  grant  dispensations  from  all  obligations,  taken 
even  upon  oath,  with  heretical  princes  and  peoples  ;  they  could 


Chap.  I.  1519.    THE   NUNCIOS   ILL   RECEIVED   IN   GERMANY,  201 

absolve  from  all  pe.rjury  committed  at  their  expense.  This,  it 
will  be  seen,  was  a  wretched  commencement  of  the  work  of 
bringin«^  back  the  Protestants  to  a  spirit  of  respect  and  obedience 
to  the  Church  ;  it  was  also  destructive  of  the  entire  policy  of 
the  emperor,  by  annihilating  any  little  confidence  that  they  still 
might  have  in  his  promises. 

A'^cordingly,  he  was  more  discontented  than  ever ;  all  the 
more  as  the  pope,  in  this  same  bull,  took  all  the  compensation  in 
his  power,  for  the  encroachments  made  on  him  by  the  Interim. 
It  bore  among  other  things,  that  the  princes  whose  forfeiture  had 
been  pronounced,  on  their  return  to  the  communion  of  the  Church, 
should  be  immediately  restored  to  the  possession  of  their  states. 
This  was  assuming,  in  the  first  place,  that  the  emperor  had  de- 
prived them  of  their  states,  as  heretics,  whereas  he  had  always 
maintained  that  he  attacked  them  only  as  rebels ;  it  was  assum- 
ing, ill  the  second  place,  that  his  consent  would  not  be  required 
in  order  to  their  being  restored  to  their  rights. 

The  nuncios  were  generally  ill  received.  "  As  Pighini,"  says 
Pallavicini,^  "  was  pursuing  his  journey  through  Germany,  he 
could  see  some  feeble  outward  manifestations  of  religion,^  which 
the  emperor's  victories  and  edicts  had  with  much  difficulty  in- 
troduced ;  but  the  minds  of  the  people  he  found  more  heretical 
than  ever,  so  much  so  that  the  masses  were  celebrated  without 
anybody  being  present.  Hardly  was  there  found  any  one  that 
thought  of  applying  to  the  nuncios  for  the  exercise  of  their 
powers,  or  that  received  them  even  with  ordinary  politeness  ;" 
to  which  the  historian  artlessly  adds,  "  It  was  evident  that  all 
their  eflbrts  would  be  useless  imlcss  they  ivere  siq^ported  tvith 
arms."  Thus  the  Protestants  hardly  gave  the  nuncios  any  oc- 
casion to  open  the  fold  again  for  the  return  of  the  stray  sheep. 
And  yet  the  opening  had  been  made  wide  enough.  The  monks 
that  had  renounced  their  orders,  had  only,  in  order  to  their  return 
to  favour,  to  wear  their  old  monkish  dress  iinder  their  secular 
clothes  ;  and  as  for  those  that  had  married,  the  pope,  without 
absolving  them  by  any  general  measure,  offered  to  make  a 
special  enactment  for  each,  conceived  in  the  most  indulgent 
'spirit  possible. 

Ill  received  by  the  Protestants,  the  nuncios  met  with  a  yet 
worse  reception  I'rom  the  Eoman  Catholics.  The  ambiguousness 
of  their  mission,  the  palpable  uselessness  of  its  results,  the  ani- 
mosity kept  up  by  the  maintenance  of  the  translation  to  Bologna, 
all  contributed  to  their  being  looked  upon  with  an  evil  eye,  and 
the  emperor,  without  breaking  with  them,  no  longer  cared  about 
giving  them  anything  to  do.     After  a  stay  of  six  months  spent 

^  Book  xi.  ch.  ii.  '-'  Of  Roman  Catholicism, 

l4^ 


202  HISTORY  OF  THE   COUNCIL  OF  TRENT.  Book  HI. 

in  different  cities  of  Germany,  they  spoke  of  going  away. 
Charles  V.  then  asked  them  to  delegate  part  of  their  powers  to 
the  bishops.  After  lengthened  conferences  a  kind  of  decree  was 
drawn  up,  half  imperial,  half  papal,  in  which  the  bull  was  in- 
serted without  modification,  but  accompanied  with  regulations  to 
which  it  was  considered  to  give  the  sanction  of  the  court  of 
Rome. 


CIIAPTEE   II. 

(1549-1551.) 

SESSIONS    XI.     AXD    XII.      DEATH    OF    PAUL    lU.      COUNCIL     llE-CON- 
'      VENED  BY  JULIUS  III.     QUARREL  OF  THE  POPE  WITH   HENRY  II. 

Death  of  Paul  III. — Glance  at  his  life — The  conclaves — Historical  Re- 
view— Tedious  delays — Sad  heroism — Factious — Combinations — Ju- 
lius III. — All  difficulties  return — They  seem  to  grow  easy — Fresh 
ones  appear  —  The  pope  eludes  tliem  —  Second  convocation  of  the 
council — The  bull  is  keenly  criticised — How  interpreted  by  Cliarles 
V. — The  council  opened  anew  with  fifteen  bishops — Eleventh  Ses- 
sion— Was  it  still-born — Political  occurrences — Rupture  with  France 
—  Galilean  inconsistencies  —  How  redeemed  by  Henry  II, — Xew 
causes  of  distrust — "Will  the  Protestants  come — John  IIuss — Twelptu 
Session — Adjournments — Amyot — Parliamentary  audacities. 

The  year  1549  was  now  drawing  to  a  close,  so  that  the 
council  had  been  asleep  for  nearly  three  years.  h>ome  Spanish 
"bishops  still  remained  at  Trent ;  some  Italians  at  Bologna. 
These  were  permanent  protests  against  and  for  the  translation. 

That  death  which  had  so  long  been  the  subject  of  conversa- 
tion, and  the  object  of  men's  desires  in  Europe,  now  happened 
at  last.  After  a  pontificate  of  fifteen  years  Paul  expired,  on  the 
10th  November,  regretted  by  the  Romans  whom  he  had  con- 
trived to  attach  to  himself,  admired  by  statesmen  who  had 
acknowledged  in  him  a  master,  but  charged  with  a  very  heavy 
load  of  deeds  to  be  answered  for  in  the  eyes  of  religion  and  ot' 
history.  God  struck  him  in  the  quarter  where  his  ofiences  had 
been  greatest.  After  having  trampled  under  foot  all  laws,  and 
all  the  proprieties  of  life,  in  his  eagerness  to  load  with  wealth 
and  honours  the  children  whom  he  should  have  blushed  to  own, 
it  was  on  hearing  of  the  treason  of  his  grandson  Oclavius, 
secretly  in  league  with  the  emperor,  that  he  felt  hh  end  ap- 
proach. In  less  than  three  days  he  died.  Had  he  in  his  last 
moments  any  re-awakenings  of  conscience  and  serious  piety  ? 
Did  the  first  gleams  of  eternity,  as  he  approached  it,  make  him 
see  at  last  in  its  true  light  his  long  course  of  trickery  with  the 
strong,  of  violence  with  the  weak,  of  lies  to  men  and  to  God  ? 
Possibly  so  ;  possibly  likewise,  and  this  is  but  too  likely,  possibly 
he  persisted  to  the  last  in  taking  no  blame  to  himself     And  of 


204  '  HISTORY   OF   THE    COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  III. 

what,  after  all,  shall  we  accuse  him  ?  A  soldier,  he  had  held 
his  post ;  a  general,  he  had  made  stratagem  supply  the  want  of 
force  ;  "  Prince  of  glorious  memory,"  says  the  historian  of  the 
council,  "  he  shewed  himself  man  only  in  the  excess  of  his  affec- 
tion for  his  own ;  in  all  other  respects  he  merited,  in  the  eyes 
of  the  Church,  the  name  of  hero."^  For  him,  the  Church  was 
himself;  and  who  knows  that  he  was  not  prepared  to  make  a 
ground  of  merit  before  God,  of  all  the  guiltiest  deeds  that  his 
devotedness  to  his  own  glory  had  led  him  to  perpetrate  ? 

After  all,  we  venture  to  say,  a  life  like  his  is  perhaps  more 
shameful  in  reality  for  the  Church  and  the  popedom  than  that  of 
such  or  such  a  pope,  whose  very  name  excites  our  horror.  Great 
crimes  are  in  some  sort  more  personal.  Those  of  Alexander  VI., 
for  example,  pertain  rather  to  the  man  than  to  the  pope  ;  a  Roman 
Catholic  may  execrate  them  as  well  as  we,  except,  indeed,  that 
he  must  afterwards  explain  how  infallibility  could  have  resided 
in  such  a  man.  In  Paul  III.  we  have  not  to  do  with  striking 
and  isolated  crimes  ;  his  life  exhibits  a  long  tissue  of  immoralities, 
that  are  neither  murders  nor  incests,  but  for  which  Roman 
Catholicism  and  the  popedom  remain  aiid  will  eternally  remain 
in  part  responsible.  With  history  in  our  hand  we  might  prove 
that  Paul  III.  was  the  representative,  and,  as  it  were,  the  per- 
sonification of  Roman  Catholicism  such  as  it  was,  such  as  it  must 
necessarily  be,  in  the  face  of  the  Reformation  and  of  the  tendencies 
developed  by  it.  Repugnance  to  convoke  a  council,  precautions 
taken  to  retain  the  command  of  it,  artifices  of  all  sorts  for  the  pur- 
pose of  dictating  its  decrees  or  giving  them  a  false  meaning  ;  aU 
that  he  felt,  all  that  he  did  or  that  he  wished  to  do,  another  pope 
in  his  place  would,  like  him,  have  felt,  and  done,  and  wished  to 
do.  God  has  judged  him ;  let  us  say  nothing.  When  we  look 
at  the  anguish  he  must  often  have  suffered  during  the  last  years 
of  his  life,  it  requires  no  great  effort  of  charity  to  feel  more  com- 
passion than  hatred  for  an  old  man  sinking  under  such  a  load  ; 
but  the  more  indulgent  we  shall  be  towards  those  who  bore  that 
load  of  errors  and  abuses,  the  more,  as  we  have  already  said  else- 
where, we  shall  feel  ourselves  entitled  to  be  severe  towards  the 
Church  that  placed  it  on  their  shoulders. 

To  whom  was  this  load  now  to  pass  ?  Seldom  has  Europe 
ever  put  this  question  to  herself  with  more  interest  and  disqui- 
etude. 

All  that  could  be  said  has  been  said  already  on  the  conclaves. 
The  most  Roman  Catholic  historians  have  been  forced  to  groan 
over  all  that  is  vexatious,  according  to  them,  and  profoundly 
scandalous,  according  to  others,  in  the  manner  in  which  these 

*  Pallayicini,  book  xi.  ch.  vi. 


C«AP.  II.  1519.     INTERNAL    HISTORY    OF   THE   CONCLAVES.  205 

meetings  are  licld,  in  the  intrigues  by  which  their  sittings  are 
prolonged,  in  that  preponderance  which  is  openly  given  to  po- 
litical interests  over  those  of  religion  and  the  fia-ith.  What  is, 
still  more,  what  M^as  the  election  of  a  pope  but  a  debate  among 
the  powers  called  to  concur  in  it  by  their  cardinals  ?  The  few 
religious  formalities  thrown  over  that  heap  of  earthly  aflairs, 
seem  to  have  been  imagined  for  the  purpose  of  inviting  hypocrisy 
to  that  congress  of  all  the  passions.  What  an  insult  to  the  Holy 
Ghost  and  to  God,  to  commence  by  solemnly  invoking  the  pres- 
ence of  the  Holy  Ghost  each  of  those  days  which  are  forthwith 
to  be  so  filled  up  with  faction  and  cabal !  What  an  insult  to 
religion,  to  conscience,  to  common  sense,  to  proclaim  the  result 
of  all  these  long  machinations  as  the  work  of  God  I  But  no  : 
these  men  are  so  familiarized  with  all  that  is  most  strange,  that 
neither  their  reason  nor  their  conscience  is  any  longer  revolted 
by  it.  Listen  again  to  him  whom  we  ever  find  at  the  breach 
whenever  there  is  a  paradox  or  an  abuse  to  be  defended.  "  God 
himself,"  says  he,  "  in  not  producing,  till  after  the  creation  of  all 
other  things,  the  greatest  and  most  perfect  being  that  he  has 
placed  upon  the  earth,  has  desired  to  teach  us  that  slowness,  in 
important  works,  is  no  proof  that  they  are  less  the  result  of  his 
will,  but,  on  the  contrary,  the  most  expressive  seal  of  that  very 
will."  Of  what  then  do  we  complain  ?  The  longer  a  conclave 
has  lasted,  the  more  intrigues  it  has  had,  the  more  the  chances 
that  the  person  elected  is  the  elected  of  God. 

The  internal  history  of  conclaves,  accordingly,  would  make 
one  of  the  most  interesting,  but  also,  alas  !  one  of  the  most  mel- 
ancholy books  that  could  be  composed.  This  very  word  con- 
clave, which  should  signify  shut,  shut  ivith  a  key,  and  which  is 
sought  to  be  justified  by  an  unheard  of  superfluity  of  gates  and 
sentinels — is  at  once  a  lie.  In  spite  of  the  oath  of  secrecy  and 
that  triple  guard,  it  is  a  matter  of  public  notoriety  that  letters 
and  emissaries  pass  and  repass  almost  without  any  difficulty. 
That  loaf,  that  piece  of  meat,  brought  for  such  or  such  a  cardinal, 
may  be  found,  if  you  open  it  up,  to  contain  the  note  in  writing 
which  is  perhaps  to  decide  the  election.  All  this  is  known  and 
seen.  Nobody  is  deceived,  but  everybody  is  willing  to  be  so, 
because  everybody  has  need  of  this,  in  order  to  deceive  in  his 
turn.  Here,  moreover,  as  everywhere  else,  we  must  distinguish 
between  persons  and  things.  The  pope  being  a  personal  sove- 
reign, and  still  more,  a  sovereign  called  to  meddle  more  or  less 
in  the  afiairs  of  all  the  others,  it  is  natural  and  inevitable  that 
politics  should  share  in  his  election.  Although  the  cardinals 
were  to  try  to  banish  them,  they  would  find  they  could  not.  As 
long  as  the  popedom  shall  be  what  it  is — and  how  sliall  it  ever 


206  HISTORY   OF   THE    COUNCIL    OF   TRENT.  Book  HI. 

be  anything  else  ?  —  a  conclave  must  be  an  afflicting  spectacle 
to  all  the  friends  of  religion,  to  whatever  communion  they  may 
belong.  Perhaps  there  never  was  one  in  which  the  cardinals 
did  not  groan  over  such  a  state  of  things,  but  no  more  has  there 
hardly  ever  been  one  in  which  the  great  majority  have  not  ac- 
cepted, without  scruple,  the  consequences  of  the  part  that  each 
has  had  to  act,  and  have  not  appeared  more  happy  than  pained 
at  having  to  move  about  for  days,  and  weeks,  and  months,  in 
that  atmosphere  of  intrigues.  Weeks,  months  I  Were  it  a  matter 
of  ancient  history,  should  we  beheve  it  ?  Can  we  figure  what 
forty  or  fifty  men,  condemned  to  remain  shut  up  together  until 
they  shall  have  made  choice  of  one  of  them,  may  have  to  say  to 
each  other,  to  calculate,  to  combine,  during  fifty,  sixty,  or  seventy 
days  ?     It  bewilders  one.     It  is  almost  heroism. 

It  was  during  no  less  than  seventy-one  days  (from  2Sth  No- 
vember, 1549,  to  7th  Februar}'-,  1550),  that  the  cardmals  remain- 
ed in  conclave,  employed  in  giving  a  successor  to  Paul  III.  And 
yet,  to  all  ordinar}^  motives  for  hastening  the  election,  there  was 
added  this  time,  one  altogether  new,  and  withal  very  pressing. 
The  year  1550  had  commenced.  A  solemn  jubilee  had  been 
published  ;  it  was  proposed  to  have  it  opened  on  the  24th  of  De- 
cember, with  certain  ceremonies  which  the  pope  alone  could 
perform.  The  city  was  chokefull  of  pilgrims.  Every  evening 
an  immense  crowd  assembled  round  the  conclave  to  learn  the 
result  of  the  voting  of  that  day  ;  every  night  they  returned  dis- 
contented, angry,  cursing  the  cardinals  and  the  conclave,  as  if 
there  was  not  among  them  the  man  whose  feet  they  were  ready 
to  kiss  the  moment  that  he  should  be  pope. 

The  cause  lay  in  the  fact,  that  few  conclaves  had  ever  been 
so  strongly  divided.  Three  factions,  as  usual — the  Imperial,  the 
French,  and  the  Italian,  divided  the  assembly.  The  Italian 
wished  to  have  one  of  the  creatures  of  Paul  III.  elected.  Car- 
dinal Farnese,  the  head  of  that  faction,  was  too  young  as  yet 
seriously  to  think  of  the  tiara  ;  but  it  was  of  consequence  to  him 
to  be  able  to  reckon  on  the  protection  of  a  future  pope  for  his 
family  and  for  himself  This  faction,  however,  did  not  include 
all  the  Italian  cardinals.  The  aggrandizement  of  the  Farneses 
had  procured  them  enemies ;  a  pope  who,  owing  his  greatness 
to  them,  should  be  expected  to  place  it  at  their  service,  was  not 
thought  to  be  desirable.  The  French  favoured  Cardinal  Sal- 
viati,  the  imperialists  Cardinal  Pole.  A  candidate  had  therefore 
to  be  looked  for  who  should  unite  the  suffrages  of  two  out  of  the 
three  factions,  and  such  was  lO  be  found  in  the  late»  president  of 
the  council.  Cardinal  Del  Monte.  The  Farneses  had  seen  him 
entirely  devoted  to  Paul  III.  ;  the  French  had  seen  him  engaged 


CiiAP.  II.  1550.  DEL    MONTE   REIGNS    A.S  JULIUS  III.  207 

in  conllict  Avitli  the  emperor.  The  majority  Inid  been  led  to  vote 
for  him — still  that  was  not  enough.  Former  custom  had  not 
permitted  the  elevation  to  the  pa])al  throne  of"  a  cardinal  whom 
the  emperor  had  formally  declared  beforehand  that  he  did  not 
desire  to  have  as  pope.  Thus  the  previous  consent  of  Charles  V. 
was  requisite,  and  iJel  Monte,  the  principal  author  of  the  trans- 
lation of  the  council,  seemed  less  likely  than  any  of  them  ever  to 
obtain  it.  Cosmo,  Duke  of  Florence,  negotiated  for  him,  and  on 
the  7th  of  February  he  was  pope. 

Now,  among  the  engagements  discussed  in  the  conclave,  and 
to  which  each  of  the  cardinals,  according  to  usage,  had  promised 
to  submit  in  the  event  of  his  election,  the  imperial  party  had 
caused  the  insertion  of  one  bearing  that  the  council  was  to  be 
continued.  In  consequence  of  this,  Julius  III.  was  hardly  in- 
stalled, when  an  ambassador  extraordinaiy,  Louis  d'Avila,  ar- 
rived in  Rome,  bringing  along  with  the  emperor's  official  compli- 
ments, the  pressing  request  that  he  would  take  into  consideration 
the  performance  of  his  promise.  Juhus  III.  replied  that  he  w^as 
ready ;  he  had  but  one  condition  to  interpose — it  was  that  the 
council,  said  he,  should  serve  for  tlie  ruin  of  heresy,  not  for  the 
demolition  of  the  authority  of  the  Holy  See.  This  was  at  once 
almost  tantamount  to  a  refusal.  On  such  a  condition  as  that 
no  pope  would  ever  have  felt  repugnant  at  the  holding  of  a  coun- 
cil. Besides,  who  could  guarantee  it  to  him  ?  Could  the  em- 
peror himself  prevent  the  most  delicate  points  being  at  any  mo- 
ment touched  upon  ?  What  was  in  any  case  clear,  was  that 
JuHus  reserved  to  himself  the  power  of  regulating,  as  his  prede- 
cessor had  done,  the  rights  and  the  competence  of  the  council. 
To  the  old  motives  that  actuated  Paul  III.,  and  which  still  sub- 
sisted, were  added  those  of  the  new  pope.  He  who  had  perti- 
naciously remained  at  Bologna  until  the  death  of  Paul  III.  could 
not  well  yield,  as  a  sovereign,  without  condemning  his  own  con- 
duct as  a  minister. 

He  yielded,  nevertheless.  The  sohcitations  addressed  to  him 
were  too  warm,  and  the  expectation  too  general ;  necessity 
proved  an  overmatch  for  wounded  vanity.  Perhaps  it  cost  him 
less  than  one  might  be  disposed  to  think.  Since  his  elevation 
to  the  popedom  he  was  no  longer  the  same  man.  Although  he 
had  always  loved  the  pleasures  of  life,  he  had  contrived,  till  then, 
to  give  the  precedence  to  business ;  but  now  that  he  was  pope, 
he  devoted  himself  to  them  so  entirely,  that  his  councillors  Ibund 
it  difficult  to  wrest  a  few  hours  from  him  for  the  most  pressing 
interests.  As  little  disposed  as  any  one  could  be  to  surrender  any 
of  the  prerogatives  of  the  popedom,  he  considered  them  only  as, 
in  some  sort,  a  deposit  to  be  transmitted  intact  to  his  successors  ; 


208  HISTORY    OF   THE    COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  HI. 

they  were  not  to  him  the  object  of  that  deep-felt  worship  to 
which  so  many  other  popes  had  been,  soul  and  body,  devoted, 
and  of  which  he  himself  had  till  now  been  the  inflexible  minis- 
ter. AYhat  still  farther  contributed  to  smooth  away  difficulties, 
was  that  he  had  only  to  apply  to  liis  own  case  the  old  policy  of 
Paul  III.  AA^e  have  seen,  in  fact,  that  the  business  remained 
under  the  form  of  a  suit  at  law  between  the  emperor  and  the 
Bologna  assembly,  a  suit  that  was  to  be  brought  to  an  issue  be- 
fore the  pope.  The  representative  of  the  assembly  having  be- 
come pope  himself,  he  could  not  be  both  judge  and  party.  The 
matter  dropt  accordingly ;  all  that  he  had  to  do  was  to  call  the 
council  without  saying  a  word  about  what  had  passed. 

All  this,  it  may  well  be  thought,  took  infinitely  more  time 
than  from  our  rapid  narrative  one  might  suppose.  It  was  not 
until  after  the  lapse  of  six  months  that  the  parties  began  to 
understand  each  other. 

The  consent  of  the  king  of  France,  however,  had  yet  to  be 
obtained.  The  French  had  never  liked  the  selection  of  Trent 
for  the  council ;  we  have  seen  that  they  thought  it  at  once  too 
Italian  and  too  German,  albeit  that  it  was  impossible,  as  we 
have  also  seen,  to  find  a  city  not  more  German,  or  more  Italian. 
It  was  from  antipathy  to  the  emperor  that  Henry  II.  had 
appeared  to  approve  the  translation  to  Bologna  ;  thither  he  had 
sent  an  ambassador,  but  very  few  of  his  bishops.  The  view 
now  pressed  on  him  was,  that  by  refusing  to  send  them  to 
Trent,  he  would  thenceforward  be  the  sole  author  of  the  impos- 
sibility of  the  council.  He  was  flattered  with  the  idea  of  being 
arbiter,  in  case  of  need,  between- the  emperor  and  the  pope  ;  and 
he  was  gained  over  at  last  by  being  reminded  of  the  character 
of  "protector  of  the  Holy  See,"  m  which  so  many  of  his  prede- 
cessors had  gloried.  The  promise  had  also  to  be  made  to  him, 
in  order  that  he  might  promise  it  in  his  turn  to  his  parliament 
and  bishops,  that  no  encroachment  should  be  made  on  the  liber- 
ties of  the  Galilean  Church.  A  very  wise  promise,  but  a  very 
odd  one  also.  How  could  the  pope  logically  say  what  the 
assembly  would  or  would  not  do  ?  Was  not  this  tantamount  to 
the  avowal,  that  he  was  preparing  to  allow  it  to  do  nothing 
without  his  leave  ? 

This  point  gained,  there  was  much  else  to  regulate.  First, 
there  was  the  eternal  question  of  the  submission  of  the  Protest- 
ants to  the  decrees  of  the  council,  a  question  now  more  compli- 
cated than  ever,  since  the  council  had  decided  things  to  which 
they  neither  would  nor  could  submit.  Accordingly,  at  the  diet, 
when  the  emperor  announced  to  them  the  resumption  of  the 


Chap.  II.  1550.     HULL   OF   CONVOCATION    oK   JLLll  S    IIL  209 

council,  they  with  one  voice  said  that,  first  of  all,  there  ouglit  to 
be  a  declaration  that  all  that  had  been  done  at  Trent  was  null. 
To  the  pope's  great  displeasure,  Charles  did  not  receive  this 
proposal  with  the  indignation  to  be  expected  from  a  true  Catho- 
hc.  He  replied  to  the  Protestants  that  it  would  be  for  the  coun- 
cil to  examine  the  question ;  the  pope  could  not  obtain  from 
him  an  explicit  engagement  for  the  maintenance  of  what  had 
been  done.  And  as  there  was  no  doubt  that  the  assembly,  were 
it  to  deliberate  under  the  same  conditions  as  before,  would  not 
liasten  to  ratify  the  whole,  the  Protestants  craved,  as  before,  that 
their  divines  should  be  admitted,  that  the  pope  should  not  pre- 
side either  directly  or  indirectly  ;  that  he  should  begin,  in  fine, 
by  absolving  all  the  bishops  from  their  oath  of  fidelity  to  him ; 
conditions  always  renewed,  always  inacceptable,  but  which  the 
emperor  did  not  reject  with  so  much  warmth  as  the  pope  might 
desire. 

Julius  took  the  course  which  we  have  ever  seen  taken  by  the 
popes  on  such  an  occasion ;  he  went  straight  on.  In  the  bull 
of  convocation  (November,  1550),  he  assumed  as  admitted  and 
incontestable,  that  the  new  council  was  to  be  a  continuation  of 
the  old  ;^  at  the  same  time  he  started  from  the  fact,  that  a  coun- 
cil-general held  without  an  acknowledgment  of  his  authority, 
would  not  be  a  council. ^  The  emperor  had  begged  that  this 
piece  might  be  communicated  to  him  before  being  published. 
The  pope  sent  it  to  him,  but  dated  and  sealed,  not  wishing 
to  appear  as  consulting  him  about  its  composition.  Charles 
made  a  vain  attempt  to  prevail  on  him  to  alter  it.  He  replied, 
with  much  reason,  that  a  bull  wdth  nothing  in  it  to  startle 
the  Protestants,  would  necessarily  be  a  lie.  The  ambassador 
requested  that  one  expression  might  at  least  be  altered — that  in 
which  it  was  said  that  the  pope  sought  not  only  to  preside  in 
the  council,  but  to  direct  it,  an  assertion  which  Roman  Cath- 
olics even  might  consider  as  exaggerated  Julius  replied,  in 
plain  w^ords,  that  if  certain  Catholics  had  forgot  that  truth,  he 
did  no  more  than  his  duty  in  reminding  them  of  it ;  and  to  cut 
short  all  such  demands,  he  ordered  the  publication  of  the  bull. 

It  was  read  accordingly  in  the  diet,  and  immediately  produced 
the  effect  that  had  been  dreaded.  Consistent  and  sincere  Roman 
Catholics  were  very  well  pleased  with  the  frankness  shewn  by 
the  pope  ;  but  all  the  emperor's  party  thought  it  imprudent  and 
ill-timed.  The  Protestants,  on  their  side,  repeated  for  the  hun- 
dredth time,  that  this  was  not  the  council  to  which  they  liad 

^  Decernimus  et  declaramus — ipsius  concilii  continuationi  et  prose- 
cutioni — iucumbei'e  veliiit. 

'  Nos  ad  quo3  spectat  generalia  consilia  indicere  et  dirigere. 


210  HISTORY    OF   THE    COUNCIL  OF  TRENT.  Book  III. 

promised  to  submit.  The  emperor  once  more  intervened  ;  he 
promised  solemnly,  to  both  parties,  that  all  should  pass  to  the 
satisfaction  of  Germany.  But  something  more  than  words  was 
wanted.  He  had  to  give  a  precise  expression  to  his  promises, 
and  to  allow  them  to  be  minuted  ;  accordingly,  the  decree  of 
the  diet  (13th  February,  1551)  was  almost  point  for  point,  the 
counterpart  of  the  bull  that  it  was  expected  to  homologate. 
The  pope  had  spoken  of  the  continuati(yn  of  the  council ;  the 
emperor  declared,  by  the  medium  of  the  diet,  that  everybody 
should  be  free  to  propose,  according  to  the  dictates  of  his  own 
conscience,  what  he  should  believe  likely  to  promote  the  good  of 
the  Church.  It  might  be  proposed,  therefore,  that  all  should  be 
recommenced.  The  pope  had  spoken  of  directing  the  council ; 
the  emperor  affirmed  that  he  would  take  care  that  all  things 
should  be  done  according  to  law  and  order  Now,  many  peo- 
ple thought,  that  according  to  lata  and  order  implied  either  the 
cessation,  or  at  least  a  great  diminution  of  the  pope's  influence. 
The  pope  had  spoken  of  setting  forth  the  doctrine  of  the  Church; 
the  emperor  announced  a  pious  and  free  council,  at  which  all 
the  questions  should  be  decided  in  a  Christian  manner,  accard- 
ing  to  Scrii%ure  and  the  Fathers.  In  a  word,  the  edict  pro- 
fessed to  be  no  more  than  a  commentary  on  the  bull,  but  the 
commentary  carried  away  the  text. 

Julius  dissembled,  officially  at  least,  for  in  conversation  he 
always  expressed  himself  with  a  frankness  that  quite  bewildered 
the  politicians.  He  was  a  wit.  He  never  met  with  a  check 
for  which  he  did  not  console  himself  with  some  sufficiently 
biting  sarcasm,  and  he  was  no  more  put  out  of  sorts  by  the 
emperor  than  by  any  one  else. 

The  re-opening  was  fixed  for  the  1st  of  May,  1551.  One 
sole  legate,  Marcellus  Crescentio,  cardinal  of  St  Marcellus,  was 
charged  to  preside  ;  two  prelates,  Sebastian  Pighini,  archbishop 
of  Manfredonia,  and  Lippomani,  bishop  of  Verona,  were  given 
him  as  coadjutors  Crescentio,  if  we  are  to  believe  the  buU  of 
legation,  was  a  zealous,  prudent,  and  pious  man  ;  but  if  we  are 
to  believe  the  ambassador  Vargas,  ^  he  was  a  man  full  of  pride 
and  effi-ontery,  who  treated  the  bishops  as  if  they  were  his  foot- 
men, and  flew  into  a  passion  the  moment  he  met  with  any  con- 
tradiction. We  shall  see  which  of  these  two  portraits  most 
agreed  with  facts. 

The  council  opened  on  the  day  fixed  (eleventh  session),  but 
with  only  fifteen  bishops.  Notwithstanding  this  small  number, 
from  the  very  first  meeting  held  the  evening  before,  "  God  per- 
mitted that  there  should  reign  in  that  new  assembly  more  lib- 
*  Letter  of  26th  November,  1551. 


Chap.  II.  1510.     CONFLICT  UETWEEN  FRANCE  AND  THE  POPE.  till 

erty  than  concord."^  The  discussion  bore  principally  on  llu; 
time  to  bo  fixed  lor  the  next  session.  The  president  wanted  a 
delay  of  lour  months.  The  majority  were  opposed  to  this — and 
yielded.  A  first  success  this  to  the  pope.  In  this,  at  least,  it  is 
impossible  to  deny  that  the  new  council  was  the  continuation 
of  the  old. 

In  this  session  (the  eleventh  datiii<»'  from  the  commence- 
ment), all  that  was  done  was  to  declare  the  council  open,  and 
to  adjourn  to  the  1st  of  September. 

New  complications  had  now  arisen,  so  that  on  the  very  day 
of  the  opening  it  was  doubtful  that  the  council  could  live. 

The  sole  result  of  the  reconciliation  of  Octavius  Farnese  with 
the  emperor  w^as  its  having  hastened  the  death  of  Paul  III. 
Threatened  with  seeing  his  city  of  Parma  occupied  as  Placentia 
had  been  with  the  imperial  troops,  tlie  duke  put  himself  under 
the  protection  of  France,  and  received  a  French  garrison.  He 
had  previously  asked  the  pope  to  continue  to  assist  him  against 
the  emperor  ;  but  whether  from  a  dread  of  irritating  the  latter, 
or  from  antipathy  to  the  Farneses,  of  whom  he  was  beginning 
to  be  tired,  Julius  had  replied  that  he  must  himself  provide  for 
the  safety  of  his  city.  It  did  not  appear,  however,  that  the  pope 
meant  by  this  to  sanction  his  putting  himself  under  the  protec- 
tion of  another  prince  ;  perhaps,  too,  as  some  believed,  he  was 
not  really  angry  at  it,  but  only  durst  not  venture  to  share  the 
responsibility  of  a  proceeding  so  likely  to  irritate  the  emperor. 
The  latter  flattered  him,  besides,  by  representing  that  the  con- 
duct of  the  young  duke  was  an  outrage  on  the  Holy  See,  from 
which  he  held  his  city  and  his  title.  Strange  assertion  in  the 
mouth  of  the  man  who  had  dared  to  seize  Placentia  as  belonging 
to  the  empire,  and  said  not  a  word  about  restoring  it  I  None 
ventured  to  expose  this  contradiction.  Julius  launched  a  mani- 
festo against  Octavius,  summoned  him  personally  to  Rome,  and 
declared  that  he  would  hand  over  to  the  emperor  the  task  of 
punishing  him  if  he  did  not  submit. 

It  was  now  the  king's  part  to  be  angry.  Is  it  the  case,  as 
some  will  have  it,  that  the  pope's  true  object  must  have  been  to 
set  him  at  enmity  with  Charles  Y.  in  order  to  find  a  pretext  for 
breaking  up  the  council  ?  We  cannot  think  that  the  Roman 
court  would  have  voluntarily  purchased  this  result  at  the  cost 
of  a  war  in  Italy,  especially  at  a  moment  when  the  goodwill  of 
the  emperor  permitted  the  hope  that  the  assembly  would  not  be 
disposed  to  attempt  too  much.  Be  that  as  it  may,  war  erelong 
seemed  inevitable.  Julius  remonstrated  with  Henry  II.  that  it 
was  not  allowable  for  him  to  undertake  the  defence  of  a  vassal 
'  Pallavicini,  book  xi.  ch.  xiv. 


212  HISTORY   OF    THE    COUNCIL    OF    TRENT.  Book  III. 

without  the  sanction  of  his  suzerain  ;  Henry  II.  dropt  the  ques- 
tion of  right,  and  asked  him  if  the  emperor,  then,  had  laid  him 
under  so  many  obhgations  that  he  could  not  tolerate  any  barrier 
in  the  way  of  the  encroaclunents  of  the  empire  in  Italy.  The 
quarrel  waxed  fierce.  Henry  threatened  to  keep  Parma  ;  the 
pope  to  excommunicate  Henry.  "  If  he  takes  Parma  from  me," 
he  would  say,  "  I,  yes  I,  will  take  France  from  him."  And  the 
emperor  forbore  to  interfere,  so  that  a  quarrel  between  the  king 
and  him  rapidly  took  the  form  of  a  quarrel  betwixt  France  and 
the  pope. 

Erelong  Henry  kept  no  measures.  The  prelates  of  the  king- 
dom had  orders  to  prepare  for  a  national  council ;  those  even 
who  were  at  Trent  or  at  Rome  were  to  return  immediately  to 
France.  Upon  this  the  pope  became  a  little  more  tractable. 
Yet  he  had  right  on  his  side ;  but  what  is  right  in  politics  ? 
And  what  was  all  this  but  politics  under  a  slight  varnish  of  re- 
ligion ?  Ascanius  della  Cornia,  his  nephew,  was  despatched  to 
the  king.  Henry  gave  him  a  tolerably  good  reception,  and  mat- 
ters were  discussed  at  first  without  excessive  bitterness,  but  with- 
out coming  to  an  understanding.  Anon  the  bitterness  reap- 
peared ;  and  the  king  ended  at  last  by  causing  a  protest  on  his 
part  against  the  council  itself  to  be  intimated  to  the  pope.  "  This 
could  not,"  he  said,  "  be  a  council-general,  seemg  the  ill-will  of 
the  pope  towards  France  was  about  to  prevent  that  country's 
taking  a  part  in  it."  In  this,  with  all  respect  for  the  chivalrous 
Henry  II.,  there  was  neither  loyalty  nor  logic.  Was  the  pope 
then  bound  to  permit,  without  even  reclaiming,  a  foreign  prince 
to  occupy  one  of  the  cities  in  his  domain  ?  Next,  in  so  far  as  a 
nation  is  Roman  Catholic,  and  calls  itself  so,  how  admit  that  its 
refusal  to  take  part  in  a  council-general  can  suffice  to  make  it  a 
particular  council  ?  The  parliament,  on  being  consulted  by  the 
king,  went,  however,  so  far  as  to  declare  that  a  nation  is  always 
free  to  accept  or  to  reject  the  canons  of  a  council,  and  even  to 
make  a  selection  from  them,  accepting  some  and  rejecting  others. 
It  is  easy  to  prove,  as  was  excellently  done  in  the  parliament, 
that  this  liberty  existed  in  the  first  ages ;  but  it  is  clear,  also, 
that  this  was  before  the  constitution  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
unity.  What  would  the  parliament  even  have  said  had  some 
small  nation,  some  Swiss  canton,  that  of  Zug,  for  example,  with 
the  eight  or  ten  thousand  inhabitants  which  it  then  had,  de- 
clared itself  entitled  to  reject  a  council  that  had  been  admitted 
by  the  rest  of  Europe  ?  Now,  the  canton  of  Zug  was  a  sover- 
eign state.  What  France  wanted  to  do  Zug  had  the  right  to  do 
also  ;  but,  like  France,  it  could  do  so  only  on  the  condition  of 
breaking,  in  fact,  that  unity  which  people  knew  so  well  how  to 


Chap.  II.  1051.     PROTEST   OF   HENRY  II.-IIOW    PARRIED.  213 

employ  as  a  A\eapon  in  combating  those  who  dared  frankly  to 
deny  it. 

As  "svith  Charles  V.,  in  fact,  it  was  at  the  expense  of  the  Prot- 
estants that  Henry  II.  redeemed  his  irreverent  conduct  towards 
the  Holy  See.  We  have  seen  how  the  emperor,  when  his  con- 
tentions with  Paul  III.  were  at  the  very  worst,  wished  to  estab- 
lish the  Inquisition  at  Naples ;  two  years  afterwards,  when  the 
debates  on  the  translation  of  the  council  ran  highest,  he  actually 
established  it  in  the  Netherlands.  In  France,  it  was  by  the 
light  of  the  fires  at  which  the  reformed  were  burnt,  that  Henry 
II.  may  be  said  to  have  written  his  anti-papal  protests  ;  it  was 
while  providing  those  fires  with  victims  that  the  parliament  ex- 
culpated itself  from  having  violated  the  Church's  unity,  and  by 
its  bold  procedure  furnished  weapons  for  the  Church's  enemies. 
A  century  and  a  half  later  we  shall  find  that  it  was  still  by  pun- 
ishments that  Lewis  XIV.  desired  to  purchase  forgiveness  for  his 
Gallican  temerities.  Alas,  how  does  the  history  of  humanity 
seem  to  be  made  up  of  biood  and  inconsistencies  I 

Null  and  baseless  in  point  of  reason  as  it  was,  still  the  protest 
of  the  king  of  France,  together  with  the  absence  of  his  bishops, 
struck  a  rude  blow  at  the  future  authority  of  the  council.  That 
blow  Charles  V.  did  his  best  to  parry.  He  sent  off  to  Trent  all 
the  German  and  Spanish  bishops  he  could  muster  ;  he  even  saw 
to  the  electors  of  Cologne,  of  Mayence,  and  of  Treves,  proceed- 
ing thither,  conceiving  that  their  high  rank  and  princely  mag- 
nificence would  powerfully  contribute  to  secure  the  credit  of  the 
assembly.  At  the  same  time  he  had  himself  represented  in  it 
by  three  ambassadors,  one  for  the  empire,  another  for  Spain,  and 
one  for  Austria  and  his  hereditary  estates.  But  in  proportion  as 
his  ardour  augmented  that  of  the  papal  party  was  perceived  to 
decline.  His  history,  already  a  long  one,  sufficiently  warrants 
the  suspicion  that  he  had  some  secret  objects  in  view.  Why  so 
many  Germans  in  1551  when  there  had  been  none  in  1545? 
Distrust  was  daily  on  the  increase. 

He  had,  also,  put  himself  to  a  great  deal  of  trouble  in  order 
to  oblige  the  Protestants  to  take  part  in  the  council  by  sending 
their  deputies  to  it.  Julius  III.  had  made  no  positive  promise 
that  they  would  be  received  ;  he  had  even  said,  in  language 
more  picturesque  than  dignified,  that  he  had  no  wish  to  fight 
with  a  cat  in  a  cage.  There  was  nothing  very  attractive,  it 
must  be  allowed,  in  the  prospective  arrival  in  full  council,  with 
the  Bible  under  their  arms,  of  men,  everything  said  by  whom 
must  inevitably  tend,  with  whatever  mildness  they  might  temper 
their  expressions,  to  deny  all  the  rights,  and  to  demolish  all  the 
pretensions,  of  the  assembly  and  the  pope.     The  political  pro- 


214  HISTORY  OF   THE  COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  HI. 

tests  had  been  disposed  of;  the  rehgious  protests  it  was  of  im- 
portance that  they  should  hear  at  a  distance  only,  in  order  that 
they  might  at  least  have  the  appearance  of  persons  that  heard 
them  not,  and  therefore  might  be  excused  lor  not  replying  to 
them.  The  Protestants,  on  their  side,  made  very  little  account 
of  the  pretended  favour  intended  to  be  done  to  them.  They  saw 
plainly  enough  that  there  w^as  no  intention  of  giving  them  any 
substantial  influence  in  the  votings  of  the  assembly  ;  they  asked 
themselves  if  their  presence,  after  having  served  no  purpose,  per- 
haps, but  that  of  irritating  their  judges,  and  preventing  all  conces- 
sion, would  not  be  interpreted  as  implying  acquiescence.  Finally, 
they  behoved  certainly  not  altogether  to  leave  out  of  reckoning 
that  John  Huss  had  been  burnt  at  the  council  of  Constance,  not- 
withstanding the  safe-conduct  of  the  Emperor  Sigismond.  The 
Fathers  of  Trent  were  asked  to  begin  by  giving  such  a  safe-con- 
duct themselves,  in  the  name  of  the  council  and  of  the  pope,  to 
the  Protestant  doctors  who  should  be  chosen  for  the  purpose  of 
attending.  • 

At  Trent,  meanwhile,  nothing  had  been  done  ;  hardly  had  it 
been  proposed  to  do  anything.  The  four  months  had  been  spent 
in  waiting  for,  receiving,  and  talking  over  news ;  in  the  few 
congregations  that  had  met,  the  documents  bequeathed  by  the 
Council  of  Bologna  had  been  put  into  order.  The  twelfth  session 
took  place  on  the  1st  of  September.  All  that  was  done  was  to 
adjourn  to  the  11th  of  October,  intimating  at  the  same  time  that 
the  chief  subject  to  be  treated  was  the  eucharist. 

It  was  on  the  1st  of  September,  also,  that  the  ambassadors 
had  their  first  official  audience.  The  Count  dc  Montfort,  who 
appeared  for  the  empire,  spoke  of  the  council  and  the  pope  in 
the  most  flattering  terms  ;  none  could  have  imagined,  to  hear 
him,  that  there  could  ever  have  been  the  slightest  misunder- 
standing between  the  emperor  and  the  court  of  Rome.  The 
French  Ambassador,  Amyot,  the  translator  of  Plutarch,  pro- 
ceeded in  quite  another  tone.  The  letters  accrediting  him  were 
addressed,  "  To  the  most  holy  Fathers  in  Christ  of  the  asseynhly 
of  Trent."  Assembly  not  council ;  this  was  a  revival  of  the  late 
quarrel  about  Bologna,  now  about  to  recommence  with  the  king 
instead  of  continuing  with  the  emperor.  Before  opening  the 
letter  it  was  asked  w^hether,  with  that  address  upon  it,  it  could 
fitly  be  opened  ?  After  some  deliberation  it  was  opened,  but 
with  the  declaration  that  this  was  done  from  respect  for  the  king 
of  France,  and  without  anywise  admitting  the  insulting  title  he 
had  given  to  the  council ;  a  title,  it  was  added,  which  his  majesty 
had  surely  not  adopted  in  an  ill  sense.  It  was  also  from  respect, 
as  the  letter  ran,  but  only  from  respect,  and  without  holding 


> 


Chap.  II.  1551.     REPETITION    OF   THE    FRE.NCII   PROTEST.  215 

himself  anywise  bound  to  do  so,  that  the  kinr^  wished  to  explain 
to  the  assembly  why  he  had  not  sent  his  bishops.  He  then  re- 
lated, but  in  moderate  terms,  his  quarrel  with  the  pope,  a  quar- 
rel which  at  that  moment  took  the  shape  of  skirmishes,  between 
the  garriso]!  of  1  arma  and  the  pontifical  army.  He  ended  by 
asking  the  bishops  to  receive  his  letter,  as  that  not  of  an  enemy, 
but  of  the  eldest  son  of  the  Church,  full  of  respect  for  the  Holy 
Sec,  although  unfortunately  at  war  with  him  who  occupied  it, 
as  ready,  in  fine,  to  submit  to  all  the  assembly's  decrees,  pro- 
vided they  were  made  legitimately  and  legally. 

Great  was  the  buzz  of  voices  on  hearing  this,  but  it  rose  to  a 
tumult  when  Amyot  declared  that  he  was  commissioned  to  re- 
peat, as  a  complement  to  the  letter,  the  protest  already  made  at 
Rome  in  the  name  of  Henry  11.  That  protest  said  nothing  at 
bottom  that  was  not  already  in  the  writing,  and  that  had  not 
been  seen  by  everybody  ;  but  with  the  letter,  which,  from  be- 
ginning to  end,  was  calm  and  polite,  none  could  seem  to  be 
ofleiided  ;  whereas  how  could  any  one  dissemble  with  respect  to 
the  protest,  which  was  equally  clear  and  animated,  and  was 
made  still  more  so  by  the  incisive  tone  of  the  ambassador  ?  The 
example  set  by  Paul  HI.  with  respect  to  the  ambassador  Mendoza 
was  foUoAved,  and  a  declaration  made  to  the  eflect,  that  as  no- 
thing guaranteed  the  authenticity  of  the  msulting  commentary 
added  by  Amyot,  Yio  regard  should  be  paid  to  it  ;  that  they 
should  keep  to  the  letter  as  the  only  authentic  document. 

Amyot's  w^ords,  notwithstanding,  were  not  long  of  receiving  a 
most  striking  confirmation  in  France,  and  one  that  at  all  times 
m.ost  sensibly  aflected  the  popes.  A  royal  edict  prohibited  the 
remittance  to  Rome  of  any  money,  on  any  account  whatsoever. 
The  verification  of  this  measure  in  the  parhament  gave  occasion 
for  the  boldest  speeches,  so  that  a  meeting  of  Protestants  could 
not  have  expressed  themselves  with  more  severity  on  the  extor- 
tions of  the  Court  of  Rome.  "  Who  shall  prevent  us,"  said  the 
Procurator-general,  "  from  dispensing  w^ith  sending  sums  Ox 
money  to  the  pope  ?  Could  these  do  anything  towards  assuring 
men's  consciences  ?  Not  only  did  they  not  justify  matters  before 
God,  but  it  is  long  since  they  have  ceased  even  to  colour  matters 
in  the  eyes  of  men."  The  people  w'honi  they  were  burning  said 
nothing  worse  of  them. 


CHAPTER    III. 

(1551.) 

SESSION    Xm.       DECREES    ON    THE    EUCHARIST.       TRANSUBSTANTIA- 
TION  AND  EPISCOPAL  JURISDICTION. 

The  communion  under  both  kinds — State  of  tbe  question  in  the  six- 
teenth century — Discussion — Authorities — Trent  and  Constance  — 
Drink  ye  all  of  it — Sophisms — True  motives — A  safe-conduct  granted 
— Transubstantiation — Production  and  adduction — Did  Luther  be- 
lieve in  transubstantiation? — Physical  objections  —  Miracle  upon 
miracle — Axioms — Is  transubstantiation  a  miracle  like  any  other — 
This  is  my  body — Scriptural  objections — Analysis  of  the  narrative — 
Historical  objections — The  Apostles  and  the  New  Testament — The 
Fathers — The  idea  advances  but  slowl}" — Admissions — The  Mass — 
The  priest — Indiscreet  questions — Theory  and  practice — Adoration 
of  the  host — Jesus  Christ  whole  and  entire — What  purpose  does 
transubstantiation  really  serve — Ignoble  questions — Dilemma — Su- 
perstitions—  Idolatry — Episcopal  jurisdiction  —  Origin — Objections 
— Historical  review — How  the  pope  became  its  centre — The  coun- 
cil avoids  going  back  to  principles — Concessions — TmRTEENXH  Ses- 
sion. 

It  was  in  the  midst  of  this  fierce  agitation,  then,  that  the 
council  proceeded  to  dogmatize  on  the  eucharist. 

In  the  first  congregation  after  the  twelfth  session,  the  mem- 
bers were  employed  in  collecting  the  articles  which  the  divines 
would  have  to  examine.  Transubstantiation  naturally  found  a 
place  in  the  first  hne,  as  the  foundation  of  Roman  doctrine  in 
these  matters.  There  were  nine  other  articles,  of  which  one 
only  was  of  importance,  that  of  communion  under  both  kinds. 

First  of  all,  let  us  say  a  word  on  this  last. 

There  was  some  exaggeration  in  the  importance  attached  to 
it  by  the  Protestants.  The  more  you  spiritualize  the  holy  supper, 
the  easier,  it  would  seem,  you  ought  to  find  it  to  be  accommoda- 
ting as  to  the  manner  of  receiving  it.  The  contrary  proved  to  be 
the  case.  Wherever  the  Reformation  had  appeared  there  was 
not  a  more  exciting  question  than  that  about  restoring  the  cup 
to  the  people. 

It  was  because  neither  was  there  any  question  in  which  more 
audacious  violence  had  been  done  to  the  plain  letter  of  Scripture 
by  the  Church  of  Rome.     In  spite  of  the  few  passages  in  which 


Chap.  III.  1551,        COMMUNION   UNDER   BOTH   KINDS.  2lY 

bread  is  spoken  of  without  wine^  being  mentioned,  it  is  clear 
that  after  having  read  in  the  Gospels,  and  in  vii.  Paul,  the  de- 
tailed narrative  of  the  institution  of  the  supper,-  nobody  would 
suppose  that  any  one  could  have  dreamt  of  suppressing  one  of 
the  two  elements.     Protestants,  it  is  true,  do  not  regard  wine  as 
indispensable  to  the  validity  of  the  act.     NoAvherc  have  they 
refused  the  supper  to  persons  who  absolutely  cannot  drink  wine  ; 
their  synod  at  Poitiers,  in  15G0,  has  declared  this.^     Nowhere, 
any  more,  have  they  affirmed  that  a  country  without  wine  and 
without  the  possibility  of  having  it,  ought  to  be  deprived  of  the 
supper.     But  as  for  taking  the  cup  from  all,  always  and  every- 
where, if  that  is  not  the  most  untoward  of  the  alterations  to 
which  Apostolical  Christianity  has  been  subjected,  it  is  at  least 
the  most  palpable,  and  that  which  we  need  feel  least  surprised 
to  see  most  warmly  resented  by  all  who  were  beginning  to  open 
their  eyes  to  the  errors  of  the  Church.      Then,  if  the  Protestants 
did  exaggerate  the  importance  of  the  cup,  they  had  been  justified 
in  this  by  two  popes,  centuries  before.     Leo  the  Great,  in  one  of 
his  discourses,  accuses  the  Manichaeans  of  sacrilege,  because  they 
would  communicate  without  wine,     Gelasius  I.,  in  one  of  his 
decrees,  expresses  himself  still  more  forcibly.     "  The  division  of 
one  sole  and  the  same  mystery,"  says  he  in  speaking  of  the  sup- 
per, "cannot  take  place  without  great  sacrilege.""*     Bellarmine 
maintains,  it  is  true,  that  Gelasius  addressed  himself  to  priests 
only ;  but,  as  Baronius  admits,  there  is  not  in  the  whole  piece  a 
single  word  that  permits  that  supposition. 

As  for  demonstrating  historically  that  the  communion  under 
both  kinds  long  prevailed,  that  would  be  useless  ;  it  has  never 
been  denied.  Only  people  are  mistaken  in  limiting  this  loiig 
time  to  three  or  four  centuries.  "  Until  the  commencement  of 
the  twelfth,"  says  Mabillon  in  his  treatise  In  ordinem  Ro- 
Qnamim,  "  the  communion  under  both  kinds  was  invariably 
maintained  by  the  Church."^  It  is  curious  to  contrast  this 
positive  declaration  of  a  Roman  Catholic  as  candid  as  he  was 
learned,  with  the  manner  in  which  two  councils  have  admitted 
the  fact.  At  Constance,  in  voting  the  communion  under  one 
kind  :  "  It  is  true,"  it  is  added,  "  that  in  the  j)rimitive  Church, 

^  In  Acts  ii.  and  xx.  The  supper  in  these  two  passages  is  called  the 
breaking  of  bread;  but  it  is  spoken  of  there  only  incidentally,  without 
any  detail,  and  wherever  there  are  details,  there  the  wine  occurs. 

^  Matthew  xxvi.  ;  Mark  xiv. ;  Luke  xxii.  ;  1  Cor.  xi. 

^  Discipline,  ch.  xii.  art.  7. 

*  Divisio  xmius  ejusdemque  mystcrii  sub  grandl  sacHlegio  non  potest 
provenire.  •  , 

^  Ante  annum  1120,  commnnio  sub  utraque  specie  ab  ecclesia  im- 
mutabiliter  retinebatur. — Sess.  xiii. 

K 


218  HISTORY   OF  THE  COUNCIL   OF    TRENT.  Book  III. 

the  sacrament  was  received  under  both  kinds."  ^  Then  comes 
another  council,  and  this  admission,  incomplete  as  it  is,  still 
appears  too  candid :  ''At  the  commencement  of  the  Christian 
religion"  the  Tridentine  Fathers  proceed  to  say,  "  the  practice 
of  the  communion  under  both  kinds  was  not  rare.'"^  See  how 
the  truth,  even  when  purely  historical,  makes  progress  in  the 
successive  decisions  of  the  Church.  "Why  should  not  a  third 
council  declare  that  it  was  %'ery  rare  ?  A  fourth,  that  it  was 
quite  unknown  ?  There  would  be  less  distance  between  these 
last  assertions  and  that  of  Trent,  than  between  that  of  Trent 
and  the  actual  fact,  clearer  than  day,  that  the  Church  existed 
for  ages  without  such  a  thing  as  communicatmg  without  wine 
being  dreamt  of,  and,  above  all,  without  people  having  the  idea 
that  the  Church  could  have  made  it  a  law.^ 

This  last,  in  fact,  is  the  most  serious  point  in  the  question. 
The  Christian  who  may  be  most  disposed  to  allow  the  Church 
all  the  rights  she  arrofjates  to  herself,  mipfht  still  on  reflection 
doubt  that  she  could  have  this.  When  Jesus  Christ  had  said, 
"  Drink  ye  all  of  it,"  when  twenty  or  thirty  generations  of 
Christians,  when  the  fathers,  when  the  councils  have  been 
unanimous  for  ages,  in  translating  this  word  all  by  everybody, 
was  it  still  a  matter  that  could  reasonably  be  changed?  The 
Church,  according  to  this,  might  have  taken  away,  had  she  so 
desired,  not  the  wine  only,  but  the  bread  also.  She  might  have 
still  more  plausibly  done  so,  seemg  that  Jesus  Christ  simply 
said,  "  Take,  eat ;"  it  might  at  least  have  been  alleged  that  the 
word  all  does  not  occur  in  the  phrase.  Might  it  not  be  said  that 
the  Saviour  wished  to  prevent  the  very  thing  which  has  hap- 
pened ?  With  the  bread  he  says  "  Eat,"  with  the  wine,  "  Drmk 
ye  all  I  "  This  word  accordingly  has  ever  given  peculiar  annoy- 
ance to  the  defenders  of  the  Roman  practice.  Mark  how  Bossuet 
gets  rid  of  it.  Nothing,  says  he,  more  clear  than  this  passage  ; 
but  no  more  is  there  anything  more  clear  than  the  order  given 
to  the  Jews  to  eat  the  passover  in  a  standing  position.  Did 
they  observe  that  command  ?  No.  Jesus  Christ  himself  vio- 
lated it.     If  then  the  Jewish  Church  could  change  something  in 

^  Licet  in  primitiva  Ecclesia  hiijusmodi  sacramentum  reciperetur  a 
fidelibus  sub  utraque  specie. 

^  Licet  ab  initio  Christianfc  religionis  non  infreqnens  utriusque 
specie!  nsus  fuisset. — Sess.  xxi. 

^  Angelo  Manrique,  in  his  Annates  des  Citeaiix,  speaks  of  several 
ancient  public  chalices  preserved  down  to  his  time  in  various  churches. 
On  that  of  the  Cathedral  of  Rheims,  the  gift,  according  to  tradition,  of 
St.  Remi,  the  following  line  was  engraved: 

"  Hauriat  hine  populus  vitam  de  sanguine  saci'o." 
"Hence  let  the  people  drink  life  from  the  sacred  blood." 


Chap.  HI.  1551.     ROME'S    REASONS    FOR   REFUSING   THE    CUP.  219 

its  passover,  "svliy  should  not  we  also  have  modified  somethiiip:  in 
ours  ?'  A  sophism  tliis,  a  pure  sophism  ;  and  bad  must  the 
cause  indeed  be  when  we  find  Bossuet  reduced  to  this.  The 
Jews  did  not  eat  standing,  agreed  ;  but  when  they  read  in  their 
law  the  positive  command  to  do  so,  where  do  we  see  that  they 
were  allowed  themselves  to  give  the  force  of  a  law  to  the  prac- 
tice of  remaining  seated  ?  It  is  one  thing  to  neglect  a  precept, 
because  thought  to  be  of  small  importance,  and  another  thing  to 
decree  the  contrary.  Had  Christians  begun  of  themselves,  from 
negligence,  to  communicate  only  with  bread,  the  Church  would 
have  been  none  the  better  authorized  to  refuse  the  wine  to  those 
who  might  ask  for  it.  In  fine,  what  proportion  could  there  be 
between  an  act  so  purely  accessory  as  that  of  eating  in  a  stand- 
ing or  sitting  position,  and  an  act  positively  pointed  out,  in  the 
institution,  as  a  half  of  the  sacrament? 

AYherefore,  then,  has  the  Roman  Church  shewn  so  much  per- 
severance in  extending,  and  so  much  obstinacy  in  maintaining, 
a  practice  apparently  so  indifierent  as  that  of  withholding  the 
cup  ?  Controversialists  have  seen  nothing  in  this  but  infatua- 
tion, a  false  sense  of  shame  at  the  idea  of  retracting  the  ostenta- 
tion of  omnipotence.  This  last  motive  has  not,  doubtless,  been 
without  its  influence.  To  say  no  precisely  where  Jesus  Christ 
has  said  yes,  might  be  at  certain  epochs  a  powerful  means  of 
making  an  impression  on  men's  minds,  by  exhibiting  the  au- 
thority of  the  Church  as  equal  if  not  superior  to  that  of  its 
founder.  But  there  has  been  another  reason  besides  these.  A 
matter  of  indiflerence  as  it  is  in  a  dogmatical  point  of  view,  the 
taking  away  of  the  cup  is  of  immense  importance  in  a  sacerdotal 
point  of  view.  It  forms  the  most  continuous  and  the  most 
sacred  of  the  barriers  that  have  been  raised  by  the  Roman 
Church  betwixt  the  flock  and  the  pastors  ;  it  has  given  occasion 
for  a  privilege  which  has  the  double  advantage  of  not  being  bur- 
densome to  the  people,  and  yet  of  being  exercised  daily  before 
the  eyes  of  all,  and  in  the  midst  of  the  performance  of  one  of  the 
most  solemn  of  all  acts.  Add  to  this,  that  nothing  had  been 
neglected  that  could  enhance  its  value.  After  the  wine  had 
been  taken  from  the  people,  it  was  still  conceded  for  two  cen- 
turies as  a  very  great  favour,  to  those  who  received  the  com- 
munion from  the  hands  of  the  pope.  Towards  the  close  of  the 
fourteenth  century,-  this  last  vestige  disappeared  ;  we  see  no 
longer  any  one  but  the  king  of  France,  who  in  his  quality  of 
Most  Christian  King,  and  of  eldest  son  of  the  Church,  still  com- 
municated under  both  kinds,  but  only  on  the  day  of  his  conse- 
cration and  in  the  article  of  death.     Thus  an  honour  which  the 

*  Variations,  book  viii.  '  See  Mabillon,  same  treatise. 


220  ■  HISTORY   OF  THE   COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  HI. 

most  powertul  of  the  monarchs  of  Europe  obtained  only  as  a  fa- 
vour twice  in  his  hfe,  the  most  petty  village  priest  enjoys  every 
day,  as  a  right  inherent  in  the  priesthood.  How  can  we  be  sur- 
prised after  this  to  find  so  much  repugnance  to  concession  on 
this  article,  even  although  dogmatic  infaUibility  had  no  direct 
interest  in  it. 

The  Protestants,  on  their  side,  had  not  ceased  to  make  it  one 
of  the  primary  conditions  of  their  return  to  the  E-oman  Church. 
The  emperor  felt  that  were  this  point  once  to  be  decided  in  the 
Roman  sense,  all  hope  must  be  abandoned  either  of  gaining  the 
Lutherans,  or  of  preventing  their  protesting  formally  against 
the  council.  His  ambassadors,  accordingly,  insisted  that  there 
should  be  no  discussion  of  its  merits.  The  presidents  wrote 
about  it  to  the  pope.  He  replied  that  the  omission  of  a  point 
of  such  importance  was  not  to  be  thought  of;  all  he  permitted 
was  that  it  should  be  put  off  for  three  months.  To  what  pur- 
pose ?  After  the  manner  in  which  it  had  been  already  treated 
in  the  preparatory  meetings,  the  Protestants  could  not  imagine 
that  there  ever  would  be  a  vote  in  their  favour  upon  it.  There 
had  been  a  talk  of  conceding  the  cup  to  them,  but  on  condition 
that  they  should  declare  that  they  did  not  regard  it  as  necessary, 
the  body  of  Christ  being  entire  under  each  species.  An  illusory 
concession  which  came,  in  fact,  too  late,  as  we  shall  see,  and 
which  no  Protestant  ever  accepted  with  that  qualification. 

On  this  occasion  was  resumed  the  delicate  question  of  their 
coming  to  the  council.  Neither  pope,  nor  assembly,  neither  the 
Protestants  themselves  nor  any  one  in  Europe,  looked  for  any 
good  from  their  coming.  The  emperor  always  pressed  it.  He 
had  directed  that  a  safe-conduct  should  be  asked  for  them,  to 
which  he  was  to  add  one  from  himself,  so  as  to  remove  any  ap- 
prehension that  their  deputies  might  feel  with  respect  to  their 
personal  safety.  The  assembly  hesitated.  Besides  the  repug- 
nance felt  by  its  members  to  facilitate  the  access  of  heretics  to 
Trent,  they  doubted  how  far  they  were  competent  to  give  a 
safe-conduct ;  apprehending,  not  without  reason,  that  such  an 
act  of  sovereignty  might  be  regarded  as  an  invasion  of  the  papal 
authority.  At  last  the  idea  was  entertained,  at  the  suggestion 
of  the  pope  himself,  of  drawing  up  one  in  which  the  Protestants 
should  not  be  named.  They  were  comprised  under  the  title  of 
"  Ecclesiastics  and  seculars  from  all  Germany,"  to  whom  the 
council  guaranteed,  "  as  far  as  it  was  in  its  power,"  liberty  and 
security.  "With  this  as  far  as  it  was  in  their  j)oicer,^  the 
pope's  authority  remained  intact,  but  the  safe-conduct  was  no 
longer  a  safe-conduct.  The  pope  was  left  free  to  cause  the 
'  Quantum  ad  ipsum  sanctum  synodum  spectat. 


CiiAP.  111.  1551.  TRANSUBSTANTIATION.  221 

deputies  to  be  seized  ;•  and  who  could  leel  sure  that  the  emperor 
•would  leel  disposed  to  deleiid  them  ? 

Transubstantiatiou  had  been  voted  without  a  debate.  No 
voice  had  been  raised  against  it.  It  is  easier  sometimes  for 
people  to  agree  in  what  is  altogether  false  or  absurd,  than  in 
what  is  only  partially  so. 

The  agreement  among  the  divines  did  not,  however,  go  be- 
yond what  was  required  in  order  to  the  anathematizing,  in  the 
gross,  of"  the  adversaries  of  transubstantiation.  After  having 
called  it  a  mystery,  it  was  found  impossible  to  resist  the  fancy 
to  have  it  explained.  Some  prelates,  more  ignorant  or  more 
wise,  had  begged  that  the  council  would  keep  to  the  anathemas  ; 
but  the  majority  thought  themselves  able  enough  to  draw  up, 
in  the  sixth  session,  a  doctrinal  decree.  Hardly  had  it  com- 
menced when  a  keen  dispute  arose  between  the  Dominicans  and 
the  Franciscans.  •  According  to  the  one,  the  Saviour's  body  is 
made  present  in  the  eucharist  in  the  way  oi  iirGclnction,  that  is 
to  say,  without  quitting  heaven,  it  is  reproduced  in  the  wafer ; 
according  to  the  others,  it  is  produced  by  adduction,  that  is  to 
say,  it  really  arrives  from  heaven  to  take  the  place  of  the  sub- 
stance of  the  bread.  In  the  former  case,  consequently,  the  bread 
subsists,  but  is  changed  ;  in  the  latter  it  is  annihilated,  and 
replaced  by  another  substance. 

Both  might  well  have  been  asked  what  they  knew  of  the 
matter,  what  they  could  ever  hope  to  know  of  it,  and,  above 
all,  what  possible  interest  either  faith  or  piety  could  have  in 
such  details.  Believers,  forsooth,  were  greatly  distressed  to  know 
whether  it  w^as  by  production  or  by  adduction  that  they  had 
Christ's  body  administered  to  them  I  It  is  true,  that  if  the 
miracle  be  once  admitted,  it  is  by  production  that  one  may  best 
try  to  explain  it ;  but  in  that  case  you  challenge  against  the 
miracle  in  itself,  one  of  the  strongest  objections  that  it  can  en- 
counter. What  becomes  of  the  identity  and  the  unity  of  the 
body  produced  in  several  different  places  simultaneously  ?  This 
was  asked  by  the  Franciscans ;  but  revenge  was  taken  on  their 
adduction.  Nothing  in  nature,  said  the  Dominicans,  is  anni- 
hilated. If  the  eucharistic  bread  is  not  changed,  but  only  re- 
placed, what,  then,  becomes  of  it  ?  And  so  both  were  right 
and  both  wrong,  the  inevitable  result  when  people  are  such 
fools  as  to  contend  in  the  dark,  without  anything  really  to  con- 
tend about. 

Some  things  are  prevented  by  their  very  strangeness  from 
being  attacked  so  vigorously  as  they  seem  to  require.  Transub- 
stantiation is  one  of  these.     In  the  eyes  of  all  who  do  not  be- 


222  HISTORY  OF  THE   COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  III. 

lieve  it,  no  greater  or  more  inconceivable  error  ever  entered  the 
mind  of  man.  But  having  once  resolved  to  keep  our  temper, 
and  to  respect  honest  convictions,  we  naturally  recoil  from  a 
contest  in  Avhich  the  insulting  words,  dishonesty,  silliness,  and  so 
forth,  are  so  apt  to  drop  from  our  pen.  Shall  this  be  a  reason 
for  our  saying  nothing  ?  No  ;  while  we  abstain  from  insult,  we 
shall  speak  out  everything. 

First  of  all,  be  it  well  understood  that  we  speak  of  transub- 
stantiation  Roman,  material,  absolute,  such,  in  fine,  as  was  de- 
creed by  the  council.  Many  beHeve  to  this  day  that  Luther 
admitted  it ;  and  these,  if  there  be  any  among  our  readers,  have 
perhaps  asked  themselves,  why,  from  respect  for  Luther,  we  do 
not  leave  this  point  in  the  shade  ?  Our  respect  for  Luther  and 
for  his  disciples  never  shall  make  us  shut  our  mouth  where 
we  thmk  he  has  erred ;  but  here,  the  more  narrowly  we  have 
looked  into  the  matter,  the  more  have  we  become  convinced 
that  in  attacking  the  gross  materialism  of  the  Roman  supper, 
we  should  be  rather  for  Luther  than  against  him.  He  has  ad- 
mitted the  word,  and  this  is  vexatious.  As  for  the  thing,  he  so 
spiritualized  it  that  the  word  in  his  mouth,  especially  towards 
the  close  of  his  life,  became  a  complete  contradiction.  Accord- 
ingly, after  the  sixteenth  centmy,  and  when  the  first  heat  of  the 
controversy  had  passed,  Lutheranism  and  Calvinism  have  gen- 
erally considered  themselves  as  agreed  on  this  point,  and  very 
few  Lutherans  in  our  times  would  refuse  to  subscribe  to  all  that 
we  are  about  to  say. 

We  shall  not  insist  on  physical  objections.  That  body  en- 
closed entire  within  a  space  some  thousand  times  less  than  its 
natural  size,  and  lyroduced  or  adduced,  as  you  will,  in  a  hun- 
dred thousand  places  at  once  without  ceasing  to  be  the  same  ; 
that  wafer  which  becomes  flesh,  true  flesh,  without  any  change 
whatever  being  wrought  in  its  colour,  in  its  form,  and  in  its 
taste  ;  that  wine  which  becomes  blood,  true  blood,  while  it  pre- 
serves all  the  qualities  of  wine — in  all  this  there  is  abundant 
scope  for  sneers  at  improbabilities,  if  we  chose  to  indulge  them. 
And  as  if  this  were  not  enough  of  a  miracle,  so  utterly  unheard 
of,  the  Roman  Catechism  tells  us  of  a  second,  not  so  ordinarily 
spoken  of,  but  which  must  certainly  be  admitted  if  we  admit  the 
first.  "  The  bread  becoming  flesh,"  it  says,  "  and  the  wine  be- 
coming blood,  by  a  farther  miracle  they  preserve  their  appear- 
ance and  their  taste."  Thus,  the  thing  is  still  more  mysterious 
and  wonderful  than  if  the  wafer  had  visibly  become  flesh,  and 
the  wine  visibly  become  blood.  You  would  in  that  case  have 
had  but  one  miracle,  but  now  you  have  two.  Great  and  glo- 
rious act,  assuredly,  of  the  power  and  the  wisdom  of  God  I     He 


cuAP.  III.  i5ji.    transubstantiation  contrary  to  KEASON.     223 

performs  a  miracle,  and  immediately  beliold  a  second  miracle 
for  the  purpose  of  concealing  the  lirst.' 

We  are  not  in  the  least  surprised,  says  Bossuct,-  at  the  difli- 
culties  that  arise  from  the  senses.  "  The  other  mysteries  of  re- 
ligion have  accustomed  us  to  subject  our  understandings  to  the 
obedience  of  the  faith."  It  is  no  more  diificult  for  the  k^jon  of 
God,  he  elsewhere  says,  to  make  his  body  be  present  in  the  eucha- 
rist  by  saying.  Tills  is  my  body,  than  to  make  a  sick  man  whole 
by  saying,  Be  thou  ivliole.  In  fme,  according  to  the  Catechism, 
"  If  the  bread  and  the  wine  which  we  take  at  our  meals,  change, 
by  the  sole  force  of  nature,  into  flesh  and  blood,  why  should  the 
bread  and  the  wine  of  the  supper  not  become  changed  by  the 
force  of  the  sacrament,  into  the  body  and  the  blood  of  Jesus 
Christ.""^  Answers  which  all  amount  to  this  :  "  Speak  not  of 
improbabilities,  all  things  are  possible  to  God." 

No,  all  things  are  not  possible  to  God.  There  are  things 
Avhich  he  cannot  do ;  there  are  things,  if  you  prefer  the  expres- 
sion, which  he  could  not  desire  to  do  without  ceasing  to  be  rea- 
sonable and  wise,  without  ceasing  to  be  God.  Can  he  make  a 
thing  to  be  and  not  to  be  ?  That  an  event  that  is  past  should 
not  have  been  ?  Can  he  create  a  square  which  is  round,  or  a 
circle  of  which  the  radii  are  not  all  equal  ?  "  You  are  obliged 
to  suppose,"  replies  Bossuet,  "  that  it  is  impossible  to  God  to  make 
one  body  to  be  at  the  same  time  in  diflerent  places  ;  but  this  is 
what  you  have  not  even  attempted  to  prove  by  any  passage  of 
Scripture."  The  Scriptures  have  never  said,  in  so  far  as  we  are 
aware,  that  a  part  is  less  than  its  whole,  or  that  a  straight  line 
is  the  shortest  that  can  be  drawn  from  one  point  to  another  ;  but 
are  we  any  the  less  sure  of  the  thing  on  that  account,  less  ready 
to  repel,  as  insulting  to  God,  the  idea  that  he  could  ever  have 
commanded  us  to  believe  the  contrary  ? 

Well,  then,  we  defy  any  one  to  shew  us  that  these  impossibil- 
ities differ  from  that  of  transubstantiation.  Reason  can  no  bet- 
ter accommodate  itself  to  the  presence  of  one  body  in  two  differ- 
ent places,  than  to  a  square  being  not  a  square,  to  a  circle  which 
shall  not  be  round,  to  an  event  which  is  past  and  which  never- 
theless is  yet  to  come. 

Shall  we  be  told  that  reason  has  nothing  to  do  here  ?  Take 
care.  That  which  is  only  above  reason  may,  in  fact,  give  rea- 
son nothing  to  exercise  itself  upon ;   but  never  can  you  deprive 

'  We  may  add  that  all  other  miracles  as  sensible  proofs  of  divine  pow- 
er tend  to  weaken  temptations  to  unbelief,  whereas  this,  by  deceiving 
the  senses,  presents  a  perpetual  temptation  to  unbelief.  Now,  "God 
cannot  be  tempted  with  evil,  neither  tempteth  he  any  man." — Tr. 

-  Treatise  on  the  Eucharist.       ^  Expos,  of  the  Catholic  Faith,  eh.  x. 


224  HISTORY   OF  THE   COUNCIL   OF  TllENT.  Book  III. 

reason  of  the  right  to  reject  what  is  contrary  to  it.  The  making 
whole  of  a  sick  person,  the  resurrection  of  a  dead  person,  are  no 
doubt  miracles  that  astonish  us ;  but  when  attacked  by  the  in- 
fidel, it  is  on  the  ground  of  improbability,'  not  of  impossibihty  ; 
he  is  compelled  to  acknowledge  that  if  God  willed  them,  they 
might  have  happened,  and  must  have  happened.  Transubstan- 
tiation  is  a  different  thing.  You  cannot  attack  it  without  your 
arguments  falling  full  on  its  very  possibility ;  you  cannot  charge 
it  with  improbability  without  at  the  same  time  charging  it  with 
absurdity.  This  important  destinction  betwixt  what  is  above 
reason  and  what  is  contrary  to  reason,  Bossuet  admits ;  he  con- 
tests only  the  right  of  applying  it.  "  Thus,"  says  he,  "  every 
time  that  a  man  shall  object  that  a  point  of  faith  is  not  only 
above  reason,  but  directly  contrary  to  reason,  must  we  enter 
with  him  into  this  inquiry  ?"  Refuse,  if  you  will ;  but  in  that 
case,  abandon  the  discussion.  All  your  arguments  are  null  be- 
forehand. A  thing  that  is  contrary  to  reason  cannot  be  proved  ; 
how,  then,  could  you  prove  it  as  long  as  you  shall  not  have 
shewn  that  it  is  not  so  ?  Homan  controversialists  are  the  first  to 
follow  this  course,  when  it  does  not  run  against  them.  When, 
for  example,  they  would  prove  the  credibility  of  miracles,  they 
set  about  it  just  as  if  they  were  Protestants  ;  they  prove,  first 
of  all,  that  reason  can  admit  them.  Why  refuse  to  do  as  much 
when  they  have  to  do  with  transubstantiation  ?  Is  this  not  an 
admission  that  they  would  not  succeed  ?  In  fact,  you  have  only 
to  ask  those  who  believe  in  it.  Force  them  to  analyze  what 
they  experience  in  thinking  of  it,  and  they  will  tell  you  that 
they  do  not  believe  in  it  in  the  same  manner  that  they  believe 
in  the  miracles  of  Scripture.  The  latter,  as  soon  as  you  are 
convinced  of  the  authenticity  of  the  book  that  records  them,  you 
believe  without  efibrt ;  they  are  only  acts,  exceptional,  no  doubt, 
but  quite  natural  and  simple,  of  God's  poAver.  But  the  former 
you  come  to  believe,  or  to  persuade  yourself  that  you  believe, 
only  by  putting  a  force  upon  yourself,  by  trampling  upon  your 
reason,  in  fine,  by  infatuating  yourself.  The  mind  acquiesces  in 
the  miracles  of  Scripture ;  but  here,  it  can  only  withdraw  from 
exercising  itself  and  be  silent.  The  moment  we  have  to  do,  not 
with  a  momentary  suspension  of  the  law  of  nature,  but  with  the 
reversal  of  an  axiom,  all  acquiescence  is  impossible.  We  shaU 
have  occasion  to  return  to  these  considerations  in  Book  IV.  in 
speaking  of  the  Mass. 

Even  were  it  but  a  simple  miracle,  it  would  always  remain 
to  be  proved  that  this  miracle  really  happened. 

^    Unlikelihood  would  perhap.s  be  a  better  -word  here  than  improba- 
bility—TR. 


Chap.  III.  1551.  CHRIST'S  LANGUAGE   FIGURATIVE.  225 

This  is  mil  body,  said  Jesus  Christ ;  and  this,  according  to 
the  Roman  Churcli,  is  the  foundation  of  its  doctrine.  On  which 
we  might  fn-st  of  all  object — 

That  Jesus  Christ  was  there,  in  flesh,  in  bones,  still  a  com- 
plete man  ;  and  that  the-  idea  of  a  man  holding  his  own  body 
in  his  hands  is  a  monstrous  oddity ; 

That  in  saying,  "  This  is  my  body  ivMch  is  broken  for  you,'' 
he  would  have  expressed,  had  it  been  really  his  body,  a  fact  that 
was  not  correct ;  since  it  was  on  the  evening  before  his  death, 
and  his  body  as  yet  was  nowise  broken  ;^ 

That  after  having  called  the  wine  his  blood,  he  called  it  this 
fndt  of  the  vine  ; 

That  if  the  words  of  St.  Luke,  "  this  cup  is  the  Nciv  Testa- 
ment in  my  blood,"  evidently  make  the  cup,  not  a  testament, 
but  the  symbol  of  a  testament,  there  is  no  reason  for  the  preced- 
ing phrase  not  being  figurative  also,  and  for  the  wine  not  being 
the  symbol  of  the  blood,  the  bread  that  of  the  body ; 

That  Jesus  Christ  often  used  expressions  not  less  figurative,  I 
am  the  door,  I  am  the  vine,  I  am  the  ivay  ; 

In  fine,  that  if  he  said  (John  vi.),  "  The  bread  that  I  will  give 
is  my  flesh,"  and  "  he  that  eateth  me,  even  he  shall  live  by  me," 
in  the  same  chapter  we  read  also,  "  the  flesh  profiteth  nothing  ; 
the  words  that  I  speak  unto  you  they  are  spirit  and  they  are 
life."  Suppose  that  a  man  holding  bread,  and  employed  further 
in  breaking  it  into  twelve  parts,  were  to  say,  "  This  is  my  body 
which  is  broken  for  you,"  to  what  Avould  you  apply  the  word 
this"}  Evidently  to  the  whole  bread,  for  it  is  the  whole  bread 
that  is  broken,  not  the  separate  pieces.  Thus,  in  order  to  our 
being  able  to  understand  the  first  four  words,  this  is  my  body,  in 
their  literal  meaning,  we  must  leave  out  of  view  those  that  fol- 
low, at  least  they  must  be  taken  in  a  figurative  sense,  for  there 
is  evidently  a  figure  in  calling  that  broken  which  is  not  so.  After 
this,  what  ground  can  we  have  for  denying  that  the  whole  phrase 
is  figurative  ? 

Without  going  beyond  the  narrative  of  the  institution,  we 
should  still  find  there  more  than  one  detail  positively  contrary 
to  the  literal  sense  of  the  four  words  on  which  Romanists  would 
fain  concentrate  the  debate.  And  what,  would  the  reader  know, 
has  the  Catechism,  which  had  seen  them  before  we  did,  done 
with  these  details  ?  The  pains  it  takes  to  attenuate  them,  is 
the  best  proof  of  the  annoyance  they  must  have  given.  "  Jesus," 
says  St.  Matthew,  "  having  taken  the  bread  and  given  thanks." 
This  to  give  thanks  {to  bless  God,  for  that  is  the  Greek),  is  first 

^  The  Vulgate  accordingly  makes  it  shall  be  broken  (frangetur),  while 
the  Greek  verb  is  in  the  present  tenpo. 


226  HISTORY  OF   THE   COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  III. 

changed  into  blessing,  consecrating  the  bread,  a  change  previ- 
ously made,  but  with  more  reserve,  in  the  decree  of  the  council, 
where  it  is  merely  said,  "  After  the  benediction  of  the  bread  and 
the  wine."^  Here  then  is  the  consecration,  but  as  the  words  re- 
puted to  be  consecratory,  tliis  is  my  body,  do  not,  nevertheless, 
occur  in  the  narrative,  until  a  line  or  two  lower  down,  the  Cate- 
chism takes  care  to  bring  the  two  ideas  into  closer  coiuiexion. 
This,  it  says,  is  as  if  the  Evangelist  had  made  it  run  thus  : 
"  Having  taken  the  bread,  Jesus  blessed  it,  saying,  This  is  my 
body."  So  here  we  have  the  mass  disco vered.^  Notwithstand- 
ing this,  however,  the  canon  of  the  mass  has  taken  a  farther 
precaution.  *'  Take  and  eat,"  says  the  priest,  ^^for  this  is  my 
body. "3  "  This  for,  however,"  adds  the  Catechism,  "  is  not 
necessary  to  the  validity  of  the  sacrament."  Why,  then,  put  it 
there,  when  none  of  the  Evangelists  has  done  so  ?  Had  the 
sacred  authors  attached  the  smallest  importance  to  the  order  and 
the  regularity  of  these  details,  if,  in  particular,  they  had  seen  in 
the  words,  This  is  my  body,  the  consecration  of  the  bread,  the 
sio^nal  of  its  beinfj  changed  into  flesh — how  can  we  conceive 
that  they  should  all  have  fallen  into  the  incredible  inadvertence 
of  not  introducing  them  until  after  the  fact  of  the  distribution 
of  the  bread  ?  "  He  brake  it,  and  divided  it  among  them,  and 
said,  Take,  eat."  Then  follows,  as  a  mere  explanation,  "  This 
is  my  body."  With  an  historian  believing  in  transubstantiation, 
and  believing  it  to  be  effected  by  those  four  last  words,  it  would 
not  be  an  inadvertence,  but  folly,  to  introduce  them  only  at  the 
end.  Where  should  we  find  a  Roman  Catholic,  who  being  asked 
to  say  over  the  mass,  would  put  the  consecration  after  the  dis- 
tribution ?     And  if  it  be  at  all  admitted  that  some  ignorant 

^  Post  panis  vinique  benedictionem. 

^  Yet  the  Roman  Catholic  doctors  did  not  light  upon  it  so  cleverly 
as  one  might  suppose.  Transubstantiation  was  taught  long  before  it 
was  thought  possible  to  indicate  the  precise  moment  when  the  miracle 
took  place.  Innocent  III.  (De  sacrificio  Missai)  admits,  that  in  order  to 
be  able  to  say  with  truth,  "This  is  my  body,"  Jesus  must  have  effected 
the  change  which  they  announce  some  time  before.  But  if  they  were 
no  more  in  his  mouth  than  the  announcement  of  something  already 
done,  how  could  they  have  in  the  mouth  of  the  priest  the  power  of 
operating  that  very  thing?  Innocent,  accordingly,  attributed  the  sacra- 
mental consecration,  not  to  these  words,  but  to  the  prayer  made  by  the 
priest  before  pronouncing  them.  This  was  more  reasonable,  but  it  was 
vague.  More  precision  was  wanted,  and  people  kept  to  the  words. 
This  is  my  body.  Innocent's  opinion,  however,  was  not  abandoned; 
shortly  before  the  council,  it  re-occurs  in  Biel  and  Catharini.  Thus  it 
is  hardly  three  centuries  since  the  consecrating  virtue  was  definitely 
attributed  to  those  four  words.  Tiiis  is  one  more  of  those  things  which 
the  greater  number  of  Roman  Catholics,  and  even  of  their  priests,  are 
far  from  suspecting.  ^  Hoc  enim  est  corpus  meum. 


Chap.  111.  1551.      ST.   PAUL'S   VIEW   OF  THE   EUCHARIST.  227 

clown,  kiioAviiig  nothiiif]^  of  the  matter,  miglit  make  such  a  blun- 
der, wlio  will  admit  that  four  or  five  doctors,  writing  coolly  and 
calmly,  could  all  have  lallen  into  the  same  error,  or  rather  into 
the  same  absurdity  ? 

And  now,  let  us  leave  the  details.  It  is  a  history  \vc  arc 
writing ;  let  us  see  what  history  says  on  the  subject. 

To  begin  with  that  of  the  Apostles,  taken  from  the  Acts  and 
the  Epistles,  we  might  ask  any  man  of  good  faith,  if  he  could 
J  come  away  from  the  perusal  of  it  with  the  idea  that  the  com- 
munion was  at  that  time  what  Rome  has  made  it  since.  Some 
expressions  might  be  cited,  more  or  less  copied  from  those  used 
by  Jesus  Christ ;  but  others  would  have  to  be  adduced  also, 
which,  as  they  can  only  be  taken  literally,  must  necessarily  out- 
weigh the  others.  We  may  say  and  demonstrate,  that  all  that 
can  be  found  in  favour  of  transubstantiation  are  figurative  ;  but 
with  respect  to  all  that  are  opposed  to  it,  it  is  impossible  to  de- 
part from  their  plain  and  obvious  meaning.  In  short,  all  that 
Home  adduces  might  have  been  perfectly  well  spoken  by  men 
who  did  not  believe  in  transubstantiation  ;  what  is  opposed  to  it 
could  not  have  been  said  by  men  who  believed  in  it.  What 
shall  we  make,  for  example,  of  those  passages  in  which  the  sup- 
per is  called  simply  "  The  breaking  of  bread  ?"  What,  in  par- 
ticular, of  that  famous  chapter,  in  which  St.  Paul  repeats,  not 
as  an  historian,  but  with  a  positively  practical  purpose  in  view, 
the  detailed  narrative  of  the  evangelists  ?  Is  not  the  eucharist 
formally  represented  there  as  a  repast  taken  in  common  ?  The 
Apostle  complains  of  certain  abuses  that  had  crept  into  meet- 
ings of  that  kind.  He  recalls,  on  this  occasion,  the  institution  of 
the  supper ;  he  desires  that  the  repast  should  be  more  fraternal, 
more  serious,  more  Christian  ;  he  threatens  and  condemns  those 
who  should  take  part  in  it  luiicorthily  ;  but  as  respects  the  re- 
past itself,  he  says  not  a  word  from  which  one  might  conjecture 
that  he  thought  the  custom  extraordinary  or  bad.  With  tran- 
substantiation is  this  admissible  ?  Much  more,  in  deducing  con- 
sequences from  the  fact  of  the  supper's  having  been  instituted 
by  Jesus  Christ,  and  from  his  having  called  the  bread  his  body, 
what  does  he  say  ?  Now  was  the  time,  if  ever,  for  him  to  state 
positively,  "Christ  is  there;  it  is  his  body;  it  is  he  himself;" 
and  this  Avould  have  been  at  once  the  strongest  and  the  simplest 
of  motives  to  urge  in  recommending  respect.  Instead  of  this, 
what  says  the  Apostle  ?  "  But  let  a  inan  examine  himself, 
and  so  let  him  eat  of  that  bread,  and  drink  of  that  cup  ;  for  he 
that  eateth  and  drinketh  unworthily,  eateth  and  drinketh  his 
own  condemnation,  not  discerning  the  Lords  body''  The 
Homan  Catechism  hastens  to  translate  these  words  thus,  "  Not 


228  HISTORY   OF  THE   COUNCIL    OF  TRENT.  Book  III. 

discerning,  under  the  bread  and  wine,  the  Lord's  body  which  is 
concealed  in  them."^  And  the  reason  for  this  is,  "  That  if,  as 
the  heretics  say,  there  be  nothing  to  be  venerated  in  this  sacra- 
ment but  the  memorial  and  the  sign  of  Christ's  passion,  what 
need  for  so  warmly  exhorting  behevers  to  examine  themselves?" 
What !  because  of  Christ's  not  being  corporeally  present,  there 
would  be  less  need  for  being  well  prepared  for  the  communion  ? 
These  words  of  St.  Paul,  viewed  more  closely,  are  quite  as  contrary 
as  the  rest  to  the  idea  of  the  real  presence.  In  fact,  the  commu- 
nicant either  believes  in  it,  or  he  does  not  believe  in  it.  If  he 
believes  in  it,  whether  he  examine  himself  or  not,  he  discerns  the 
body  concealed  under  the  bread  ;  if  he  does  not  believe  in  it,  it  is 
not  by  examining  himself  that  he  will  come  to  believe  in  it.  In 
both  cases  there  is  no  connexion  between  the  counsel  given,  and 
the  consequence  indicated.  This  discernment  of  the  Lm'cVs  body, 
then,  can  only  be  what  arises  from  self-examination  ;  that  is  to 
say,  from  the  right  dispositions  taken  altogether,  which  ought  to 
be  brought  to  the  act,  and  from  a  profound  sense  of  its  sacredness. 

After  this,  although  transubstantiation  were  proved  to  us  to 
have  been  established  from  the  close  of  the  first  century,  or  from 
the  commencement  of  the  second,  still  we  should  be  entitled  at 
once  to  deny  that  it  can  be  traced  to  the  Apostles. 

But  there  is  nothing  of  the  kind  to  be  found  in  history.  Only 
let  us  acknowledge  that  the  Church's  ideas  on  the  subject  of  the 
supper,  speedily  began  to  be  modified.  As  the  increase  in  the 
number  of  Christians  no  longer  admitted  of  their  partaking  of  a 
repast  in  common,  it  had  become  necessary  to  conduct  it  with 
more  solemn  forms  ;  and  with  these  new  forms  there  crept  in  a 
tendency  to  regard  the  substance  also  luider  an  aspect  more  or 
less  new.  Jewish  or  pagan  reminiscences,  the  mystery  with 
which  the  early  Christians  were  often  compelled  to  surround 
themselves,  the  excitement  caused  by  a  sense  of  danger,  the  need 
of  a  protection  from  on  high  ever  more  present  and  more  sensibly 
felt,  everything,  in  fine,  had  concurred  to  enhance  the  eucharist 
in  proportion  to  the  miracles  of  grace  that  were  expected  from  it 
every  day.  That  bread,  that  wine,  people  could  no  longer  make 
up  their  minds,  in  some  sort,  to  look  upon  as  no  more  than  bread 
and  wine ;  they  attached  themselves  more  and  more  closely  to 
those  passages  of  Scripture  which  seemed  to  make  them  some- 
thing else  ;  they  advanced  by  long  strides  towards  transubstan- 
tiation ;  and  yet  ages  were  destined  to  elapse  before  they  durst 
venture  to  make  it  an  article  of  faith. 

Why  so  long  of  coming  to  the  birth  ?     Because  even  amid  the 

'  Corpus  Domini,  quod  in  Eucharistia  occulto  latet,  ab  alio  ciborum 
genere  non  distinguit. 


Chap.  III.  1551.  OPINIONS   OF   THE   FATHERS.  229 

general  tendencies,  people  were  ottcu  thrown  back  against  tlieir 
will  upon  the  precise  statements  of  the  Bible  and  the  plain  con- 
clusions of  reason.  What  wc  said  above  of  Scripture,  we  may 
now  say  of  the  Fathers  :  to  whatever  they  have  written  that 
seems  to  favour  the  doctrine  of  the  real  presence,  we  may  oppose 
things  which  they  manifestly  would  not  have  said,  had  they  be- 
lieved in  it. 

See  Justin,  first,  in  his  famous  apology :  "  On  the  day  of  the 
sun  we  meet.  The  Scriptures  are  read,  and  then,  an  elder  ex- 
horts the  people  to  follow  such  beautiful  examples.  We  rise, 
we  pray  anew  ;  water,  bread,  and  wine  are  set  down.  The  priest 
(presbyter)  gives  thanks,  and  those  present  reply,  Amen.  A 
part  of  the  consecrated  things  are  distributed,  and  the  deacons 
take  the  rest  to  the  absent."  W^ere  the  real  presence,  were  tran- 
substantiation  here,  it  might  be  said  that  the  Protestants  believe 
in  it,  for  it  is  precisely,  with  hardly  any  exception,  a  represent- 
ation of  their  meetings. 

Read  Tertullian  :^  "  Jesus  Christ  having  taken  bread,  and 
having  distributed  it  among  his  disciples,  made  it  liis  body, 
saying.  This  is  my  body,  that  is  to  say,  the  figure  of  my  body." 
Besides  these  last  words,  note,  that  as  in  the  narratives  of  the 
Evangelists,  the  consecvaiion  folloivs  the  distribution. 

Read  Origen  :^  "  If  Christ,  as  the  Marcionites  maintain,  had 
neither  flesh  nor  blood,  of  what  body  and  of  what  blood  were  ^ 
that  bread  and  that  wine  the  signs  and  images?  Elsewhere^ 
he  calls  the  bread  of  the  eucharist  a  figurative  body.  At  this 
passage  and  at  two  or  three  others  of  this  kind,  "  Origen  was  a 
heretic,"  replies  Cardinal  Duperron.  Heretic  if  you  will ;  but 
all  his  heresies  have  been  adopted  by  Epiphanius,  by  Augustine, 
by  Jerome,  and  never,  in  so  far  as  we  know,  have  these  words 
been  made  a  charge  against  him. 

Read  Ephrem  :*  "  Taking  bread  in  his  hands  he  gives  thanks, 
and  breaks  it  in  figure  of  (his  immacidate  body^ 

Read  Macarius  :^  "  Bread  and  wine  are  offered,  being  the 
figure  of  the  flesh  and  blood  of  Jesus  Christ.     They  who  pat- 

^  Against  Mareion,book  iii. — Acceptum  panein  et  distributum  disci- 
pulis  corpus  suum  fecit,  dicendo  hoc  est  corpus  meum,  id  est  figura  cor- 
poris mei.  Duperron,  in  quoting  this  passage,  changes  id  est  into  scilicet, 
and  makes  Tertullian  say:  "  This,  to  wit,  the  figure  of  my  body,  is  my 
body."  Bellarmine  (Eucharist  xx.)  is  not  content  with  twisting  the 
meaning,  but  mutilates  the  phrase.  He  suppresses  altogether  id  est 
figxira.  Tliese  falsifications  shew  plainly  enough  how  clear  this  passage 
has  appeared,  and  how  embarrassing. 

-  Against  the  Marcionites.  ^  Commentary  on  St.  Matthew. 

*  Against  the  curious  inquirers  into  the  body  of  Chri.st. 

'  Homily  xxvii. 


230  HISTORY    OF  THE    COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  III. 

ticipate  in  this  visible  bread,  eat  spiritually  the  flesh  of  the 
Lord." 

Read  Theodoret  :^  "  The  Lord  has  honoured  these  visible  signs 
with  the  name  of  his  body  and  his  blood,  not  in  changing  their 
nature,  but  in  adding  grace  to  nature." 

Read  Vigilius  i^  "  When  Christ's  flesh  was  on  the  earth,  it  was 
not  in  heaven ;  and  now  that  it  is  in  heaven,  it  is  not  on  the 
earth." 

Read  Chrysostom,^  and  this  passage  is  all  the  more  remarkable 
against  the  real  presence,  as  the  first  words  seem  to  lead  to  it : 
"  Before  the  bread  is  consecrated  it  is  called  bread  ;  but  when 
divine  grace  has  sanctified  it  through  the  intervention  of  the 
priest,  then  it  no  longer  bears  the  name  of  bread  ;  it  becomes 
ivorthy  of  being  called  the  Lord's  body,  altlwugh  the  nature  of 
bread  remains  in  itT 

Finally,  read  St.  Augustme.  That  one  among  the  Fathers 
who  has  furnished  the  most  arms  to  the  partisans  of  the  real 
presence,  is  the  one  also  who,  when  he  reasons  and  speaks  with- 
out figures,  furnishes  us  with  the  most  against  that  same  opinion. 
Listen  to  him  in  one  of  his  treatises  :^  "  The  Lord  had  no  difli- 
culty  in  saying.  This  is  my  body,  when  he  gave  the  sign  of  his 
body."  Listen  to  him  in  an  epistle  :^  "  This  sacrifice  (of  the  • 
eucharist)  is  a  thanksgiving  and  a  corrmnemoration  of  the  blood 
of  Christ  which  he  ofiered  for  us."  Listen  to  him  m  another 
epistle  :^  "  Had  the  sacraments  no  resemblance  to  the  thmgs 
whereof  they  are  the  sacraments,  they  would  not  be  sacraments. 
But,  in  consequence  of  that  resemblance,  tliey  take  most  fre- 
quently the  name  of  the  things  themselves^  And  what,  then, 
does  he  give  as  an  example  ?  Why,  the  bread  and  the  wine  of 
the  eucharist.  Hear  him,  finally,  in  one  of  his  works,  in  which 
we  may  feel  most  assured  of  having  his  veritable  sentiments,  his 
Christian  Doctrine:  "  If  a  commandment  forbids  anything  that 
is  shameful  or  criminal,  or  recommends  what  is  useful  and  good, 
that  command  is  not  figurative  ;  but  if  he  commands  a  bad  thing 
or  forbids  a  good  thing,  it  must  not  be  taken  literally."     And 

'  First  Dialogue  against  the  Eutycliians. 

-  Against  Eutj'cliius,  book  iv.  ^  Letter  to  Csesarius. 

*  Against  Adimant,  ch.  xii. 

*  To  the  Deacon  Peter,  on  the  Faith.  (This  book  has  been  attributed 
also  to  Fulgentius,  the  disciple  of  St.  Augustine.)  In  isto  sacrificio  gra- 
tiarum  actio  atque  commemoratio  est  carnis  Christi,  quam  pro  nobis 
ohtulit. 

*  To  Boniface.  Si  sacramenta  quandam  similitudinem  harum  rerum 
quarum  sacramenta  sunt  non  haberent,  omnino  sacramenta  non  essent. 
Ex  hac  autem  simihtudine  plerumque  etiam  ipsarum  nomina  accipiunt. 
Mark  the  expression:  Quarum  sacramenta  sunt,  of  wliich  they  are  the 
sacraments;  as  if  lie  had  said,  Of  which  thev  are  the  sacred  emblems. 


Chap.  III.  1531.     WHAT  A   COURAGE    HAD   THE    COUNCIL!  231 

what  does  he  give  as  an  instance  ?  Why,  still  the  eucharist. 
"  '  If  yc  eat  not,'  saith  the  Saviour,  '  the  flesh  of  the  Son  of  Man, 
and  drink  not  his  blood,  ye  have  no  life  in  you.'  It  looks  as  if  in 
these  words  he  commanded  a  crime  ;  it  is  a  figure,  then,  by  which 
we  are  recommended  to  communicate  in  our  Saviour's  passion, 
by  engraving  in  our  memory,  in  a  manner  at  once  affecting  and 
useful,  the  killing  and  crucifying  of  his  body  for  us."i  What, 
after  this,  and  we  have  far  from  quoted  all  that  has  been  col- 
lected of  an  analogous  kind,  from  the  writings  of  that  Father — 
what,  we  say,  become  of  those  passages  in  which  Augustine, 
reproducing,  without  comment,  the  figure  employed  by  Jesus 
Christ,  appears  to  teach  the  real  presence.^  And  what  a  lament- 
able courage  must  the  Fathers  of  Trent  have  had  when  they 
ventured  to  say,  "  All  our  ancestors  .  .  .  have  taught  thus  in 
the  most  open  manner.  .  .  .  And  since  these  words  of  the  Saviour 
present  this  proper  and  most  evident  meaning,  according  to  which 
they  were  understood  by  the  Fathers,  it  is  assuredly  a  most  hein- 
ous crime,  that  these  words,  against  the  universal  sentiment  of 
the  Church,  should  be  twisted  by  certain  quibbling  and  depraved 
persons,  into  certain  fictitious  and  imaginary  figures ;  the  Church, 
accordingly,  has  always  detested  as  satanical  these  explanations 
imagined  by  impious  men."^ 

Among  these  impious  men,  as  the  crowning  of  the  work,  there 
ought  to  have  been  ranged  all  the  Roman  Catholic  historians 
who  have  been  candid  enough  to  relate  the  origin  and  progress 

^  Si  praeceptiva  locutio  est  aut  flagitium  aiit  facinus  vetans,  aut  util- 
itatem,  aut  beneficentiam  jubens,  non  est  figurata.  Si  autem  flagitium 
aut  facinus  videturjubere,  aut  utilitatem  aut  beneficentiam  vetare,  figu- 
rata est.  "Nisi  manducaveritis,"  inquit,  "  earn  em  filii  liominis,"  «tc. 
Facinus  vel  flagitium  videtur  jubere ;  figura  est  ergo,  pra?cipiens  pas- 
sioni  dominicae  communicandum,  et  suaviter  atque  utiliter  reconden- 
dum  in  memoria  quod  pro  nobis  caro  ejus  crucifixa  et  vulnerata  sit. 
(De  Doctr.  Clir.  iii.  16.) 

*  At  Geneva,  too,  in  this  manner,  and  m  the  Reformed  Church  of 
France,  it  would  appear  to  be  taught,  for  one  of  the  liturgical  hymns 
contains  these  verses : 

Sa  chair  sacree  est  le  seul  aliment  His  sacred  flesh  supplies  the  only  food 

Qui  donne  a  Tame  un  vrai  contentement.  That  fills  the  hungry  soul  with  real  good, 

Son  divin  sang,  qu'il  offre  pour  breuvage.  His  blood,  whence  he  our  beverage  supplies, 

Nous  a  des  cicux  merite  I'heritage  .  .  .  Has  merited  our  kingdom  in  the  skies.  .  . 

Mais  qui  pourrait  ainsi  manger  et  boire  But  who  the  body  and  the  blood  could  think 

Le  corps  sacre,  le  sang  du  roi  de  gloirc  ?  Of  glory's  king  to  feed  upon  and  drink  ? 

C'est  le  Chretien  qui,  &c.  It  is  the  Christian  who,  &c. 

^  Ita  enim  majores  nostri  omnes  .  .  .  apertissime  profcssi  sunt.  Quje 
verba  .  .  .  quum  propriam  illam  et  apertissimam  significationem  praj  se 
ferant,  secundum  quam  a  Patribus  intellecta  sunt,"indignissimum  sane 
flagitium  est  ea  a  quibusdam  contentiosis  et  pravis  hominibus  ad  ficti- 
tios  et  imaginarios  tropos  converti,  contra  universum  Ecdesiaj  sensum; 
qua;  ha;c  ab  impiis  hominibus  excogitata  commenta,  velut  satanica  detes- 
tata  est,  semper  agnoscens,  &c. 


232  HISTORY   OP  THE   COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  III. 

of  this  idea,  which  one  would  beheve,  looking  to  the  decree, 
could  have  had  no  other  commencement  but  that  of  Christianity 
itself  Through  whom  do  we  know,  if  not  through  them,  and 
in  particular  through  one  of  the  most  devoted  champions  of 
,  Rome,  Bellarmine,  that  it  was  Paschasius  Rathbert,  abbot  of 
/  Corbie,  in  the  ninth  century,  who  first  positively  taught  the  real 
presence  ?  Through  whom  do  we  know,  if  not  through  them, 
that  though  his  opinion  may  already  have  been  that,  as  is  pos- 
sible, of  the  majority  of  doctors,  still  it  met  with  quite  a  suffi- 
cient amount  of  opposition  to  prove  that  it  was  not  an  admitted 
doctrine  ?  Rathbert  himself,  in  a  letter  to  Frudegard,  admits 
that  many  accused  him  of  having  exaggerated  the  meaning  of 
the  words  of  Jesus  Christ.  Does  he  say  that  they  were,  there- 
fore, heretics  ?  Does  he  attack  them  in  the  name  of  the  Church  ? 
Not  at  all.  Had  he  done  so,  we  should  only  have  had  to  adduce 
the  names  of  those  who,  either  during  his  lifetime  or  afterwards, 
impugned  his  doctrine, ^  and  to  ask  if  so  many  eminent  person- 
ages, abbots,  bishops,  archbishops,  could  have  dreamt  of  im- 
pugning what  they  regarded  as  sanctioned  by  the  Church. 
Thus,  whatever  date  may  be  assigned  to  the  first  commence- 
ment of  transubstantiation,  it  remains  demonstrated  that  in  the 
ninth  or  tenth  centuries  people  wrote  freely  for  and  against  it. 
It  was  an  opinion,  not  an  article  of  faith. 

Finally,  in  1059,  under  Nicolas  II.,  it  was  adopted  at  Rome, 
but  at  a  private  council,  and  not  very  clearly  In  1215,  under 
Innocent,  it  was  definitively  voted  at  the  council  of  Lateran,  and 
took  the  name  which  has  since  been  given  to  it. 

All  opposition  was  now,  no  doubt,  to  be  at  an  end.  But  no. 
Between  the  council  of  Lateran  and  that  of  Trent  we  find  doc- 
tors who,  even  while  declaring  their  belief  in  it,  admit  that  they 
do  not  see  it  in  the  Scriptures.  First  there  is  Duns  Scotus ;  he 
knows  not,  he  says,^  any  Scriptural  declaration  which,  by  itself, 
^  and  without  the  determination  of  the  Church,  can  oblige  one  to 
\J  admit  it.  Then  we  have  Cardinal  D'Ailly.^  "  This  opinion," 
says  he,  "  that  the  substance  of  the  bread  always  remains,  is  not 
repugnant  either  to  reason  or  to  Scripture.  It  is  even  easier  of 
comprehension,  and  more  rational,  if  it  could  accord  with  the 
determination  of  the  Church."  Then  Gabriel  Biel,  in  his  lessons 
on  the  mass  :  "We  do  not  find  in  the  Bible  ^  in  what  manner 
Christ's  body  is  there.     That  is  proved  by  the  authority  of  the 

^  Amalaire,  Arcbbisliop  of  Treves;  Heribald,  Bishop  of  Auxerre; 
Rabau,  Archbishop  of  Mayence ;  Waldfrid,  Abbot  of  Saint  Gall ;  Loup, 
Abbot  of  Ferrieres ;  Bertram,  Monk  of  Corbie,  <fec. 

*  Coninientar  yon  Book  IV.  of  Sentences.  ^  Ibid. 

*  Xon  iiivenitur  in  canone  Biblire. 


Chap.  III.  1561.  DOUBTS   OF   THE    DOCTORS.  233 

Churcli  iiiiil  of  llie  saints,  for  by  reasons  it  cannot  be  proved. 
But  wliy  should  the  Cliurch  and  the  saints  have  determined  so 
difficult  a  meaning,  seeing  the  Scriptures  might  be  expounded 
on  tliis  article  in  a  manner  much  more  easy  to  be  understood? 
The  Church  has  so  determined."  tSee  again,  shortly  beibrc  the 
council  of  Trent,  two  great  doctors  that  entertained  the  same 
view.  The  one  is  Cardinal  Cajetan  :^  "  That  which  the  Gos- 
pel has  not  explained  expressly,  to  wit,  the  manner  in  which  the 
hread  is  changed  into  the  body  of  Christ,  we  have  received  from 
^^he  Church."  The  other  is  Bishop  Fischer  i^  "Here  (in  the 
narrative  of  the  institution  of  the  supper)  there  is  not  a  word  by 
which  one  might  prove  the  true  presence  of  the  body  and  the 
blood  of  Jesus  Clirist.  One  cannot  prove  that,  then,  by  any 
Scripture."  And  although  the  council  aflected  to  rest  on 
Scripture  alone,  although  it  has  declared  the  meaning  to  be 
clear,  evident,  incontestable,  which  it  has  given  to  the  words 
this  is  my  body,  lo,  here  we  find  Cardinal  Bellarmine  returning, 
forty  years  afterwards,  almost  to  the  same  thesis  :  For  him, 
says  he,3  he  believes,  like  the  council,  that  transubstantiation 
may  be  proved  by  Scripture,  but  it  may,  nevertheless,  be  doubt- 
ed whether  it  be  so,  since  very  learned  and  very  ingenious  men 
have  been  of  a  contrary  opinion. 

"VYhat  more  could  we  ask  than  these  admissions  ?  What  could 
we  find  more  positively  corroborative  of  what  we  have  said,  under 
the  scriptural  point  of  view,  against  transubstantiation  ?  Say, 
if  you  will,  that  these  authors  were  wrong  in  not  clearly  seeing 
it  in  Scripture  ;  the  mere  fact  that  they,  good  Roman  Catholics, 
have  admitted  that  they  had  not  seen  it  there,  will  ever  prove 
that  it  is  not  clearly  there  ;  and  we  should  then  ask  if  it  be  ad- 
missible that  a  dogma  w4iich  was  to  be  in  relation  to  worship 
that  which  the  existence  of  God  is  to  faith,  that  is  to  say,  the  cen- 
tre and  foundation  of  all  the  rest,  should  not  have  been  distinctly 
announced,  distinctly  alluded  to,  in  a  single  passage  of  the  holy 
books. 

Now,  then,  all  that  we  have  said  of  it  we  might  repeat,  did 
we  so  choose,  in  speaking  of  all  the  dogmas  and  all  the  practices 
of  Avhich  it  is  the  source. 

We  should  ask  first,  not  if  the  mass  is  in  Scripture — for  that 
would  be  almost  a  jest — but  whether  the  supper  holds  a  place 
there  which  can  in  any  way  be  compared  with  that  now  held  by 
the  mass  at  the  present  day  in  the  Roman  Church  ?  We  may 
be  allowed,  on  this  matter,  to  make  an  observation  which  Prot- 
estants themselves  may  deem  too  bold,  but  to  which  a  man  of 

'  Question  Ixxv.  ^  Against  the  Captivity  of  Babylon,  ch.  x. 

^  On  the  Eucharist,  book  iii.  ch.  25. 


y 


234  HISTORY   OF  THE    COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  HI. 

calm  and  sound  mind  will  not,  we  think,  be  able  to  refuse  his 
assent. 

This  observation  is  that  the  supper — ^by  which  we  mean,  of 
course,  the  materiel  of  the  supper — has  not  in  Scripture  the  im- 
portance that  Christians  have  generally  given  to  it.  We  would 
not,  assuredly,  be  understood  to  mean  by  that,  that  it  can  ever 
be  surrounded  with  too  much  respect,  or  that  one  can  prepare 
himself  for  it  too  carefully  ;  it  is  the  holiest  of  the  accessories, 
but  still  an  accessory,  since  it  may  be  dispensed  with.  Observe, 
that  St.  John,  the  most  spiritual  of  the  four  evangelists,  has 
omitted  recording  it.  The  greater  number  of  the  Epistles  do  not 
mention  it.  The  fact  that  the  first  Christians  communicated  at 
all  their  meetings,  far  from  contradicting  us,  favours  our  view, 
if  it  proves,  which  we  admit  without  difficulty,  that  the  first 
Christians  always  and  everywhere  obeyed  the  command — "Do 
this  in  remembrance  of  me."  It  proves  also,  looking  to  the 
simple  manner  in  which  they  observed  it,  and  the  daily  partici- 
pation in  it  by  one  and  all,  that  they  were  very  far  from  seeing 
in  the  supper  the  foundation  and  the  essential  part  of  worship. 
The  augmentation  of  its  solemn  accompaniments  is  what  we 
quite  approve  ;  but  if  one  cannot  say  that  this  is  contrary  to  the 
ideas  of  the  primitive  Church,  no  more  can  one  say  that  it  was 
in  conformity  with  its  usages. 

What,  consequently,  shall  we  say  of  the  transformation  that 
has  taken  place  in  the  supper  becoming  the  mass  ?  The  mass  is 
the  abstract,  the  centre,  and,  for  many,  the  whole  of  religion  and 
of  worship.  In  like  manner  as  Christ  is  thought  to  be  incarnated 
in  the  wafer,  Christianity  is  viewed  as,  in  some  sort,  incarnated 
in  the  mass.  The  mass,  always  and  everywhere  the  mass.  The 
mass  on  all  occasions ;  the  mass  for  all  objects.  From  Rome 
down  to  the  merest  hamlet,  not  a  temple  where  the  general 
plan,  or  the  details  of  the  edifice,  where  all,  in  fine,  does  not 
announce  the  mass,  is  not  made  for  the  mass,  and  does  not  ex- 
clude, at  the  first  glance,  every  other  idea  but  that  of  the  mass. 
The  mass,  accordingly,  is  the  first  thing  that  a  Roman  Catholic, 
if  he  begins  to  open  his  eyes,  is  astonished  at  not  finding  in  the 
Bible.  Judging  of  it  by  the  importance  that  he  has  been  taught 
to  attach  to  it,  he  might  expect  to  meet  with  it  at  every  page. 
In  vain  will  it  be  attempted,  after  that,  to  show  it  to  him  in  its 
germ  in  the  narrative  of  the  supper,  in  some  isolated  passages. 
If  still  too  little  versed  in  theology  and  history  to  reply  from  the 
grounds  of  either,  it  will  always  be  enough  lor  him  to  say  that 
what  occupies  so  large  a  space  in  his  creed,  in  his  worship,  be- 
hoves to  occupy,  in  the  picture  left  us  of  the  early  years  of  the 


Chap.  III.  1551.      WONDERFUL   POWER    OF   THE   PRIEST.  235 

Churoh,  siilHcient  space  at  least  not  to  escape  his  notice  on  a 
first  reading. 

Assuredly  a  priest  who  believes  in  the  real  presence  may  boast 
of  possessing  the  greatest  and  most  miraculous  of  the  powers 
witli  which  a  creature,  man  or  angel,  was  ever  invested.  "  We 
confess  that  the  priest  is  greater  than  Mary  herself,  the  mother 
of  (rod.  She  gave  birth  to  Christ  but  once  ;  but  the  priest  cre- 
ates him  when  he  pleases,  and  as  often  as  he  pleases."  Such 
is  the  tenor  of  a  form  of  abjuiation  imposed  at  the  commence- 
ment of  the  last  century  on  the  peasants  of  Hungary.  Although 
the  authenticity  of  this  has  been  disputed,  these  lines,  extraordi- 
nary as  they  are  to  reasonable  Roman  Catholics,  are  not  the  less, 
if  we  admit  the  real  presence;  rigorously  true.  What  Mary, 
blessed  among  all  women,  viewed  as  the  most  glorious  and  sacred 
of  favours,  there  are  three  or  four  hundred  thousand  priests 
throughout  the  world  to  whom  it  is  a  thing  of  daily  and  very 
simple  occurrence.  And  when  one  thinks  that  the  most  impure 
and  criminal  of  men  may,  in  a  few  seconds,  with  a  few  hastily 
uttered  words,  perform,  when  he  pleases,  this  prodigy  of  pro- 
digies,' your  head  swims,  in  truth,  in  the  view  of  such  an  abyss 
of  inconsistencies  and  pride.  All  that  Egypt  or  India  ever  im- 
agined in  the  way  of  fabulous  monstrosity  for  the  elevation  of 
their  priests  above  the  ordinary  level  of  humanity,  has  been  out- 
done by  Rome  in  teaching  transubstantiation.  Did  not  the  num- 
ber of  the  priests  and  the  frequency  of  the  masses  attenuate  the 
importance  attached  to  it — were,  for  example,  one  sole  priest  in 
the  world  thought  to  perform  it,  he  would  be  almost  a  god. 

A  priest,  ivho  believes  i?i  the  real  jnesence,  we  have  said.  Do 
we  mean  to  hint  that  all  do  not  believe  in  it  ?  When  Luther, 
at  that  time  a  fervent  Roman  Catholic,  went  on  his  journey  into 
Italy,  nothing  more  profoundly  shocked  him  than  to  see  priests 
laughing  in  secret  at  their  public  performances.  "  Bread  thou 
art,  and  bread  thou  shalt  remain,'"-  they  would  say  in  the  mass, 

'Let  ITS  not  forget  that  this  power,  if  it  exists  at  all,  is  necessarily 
unlimited.  All  the  wine  that  may  be  contained  in  a  cellar,  all  the 
bread  that  may  be  found  in  a  baker's  shop,  the  priest  may  by  a  few 
words  transubstantiate  into  the  body  and  the  blood  of  Christ.  Conse- 
crare  potest  multos  cophinos  panis  et  vini  dolium.  si  pra?sentia  ista  ha- 
beret,  says  Cardinal  Tolet,  (De  Instructione  Sacerdotum,  lib.  ii.)  Llo- 
rente  relates  that  a  priest  amused  himself  one  day  by  consecrating  in 
passing  all  the  bread  exposed  for  sale  in  a  market.  He  was  punished, 
and  passed  for  a  person  who  had  lost  his  mind ;  but  not  the  less  was 
the  bread  regarded  as  transubstantiated.  Nobody  dared  to  touch  it. 
Priests  came  to  take  it  away,  and  nobody  knowing  what  to  do  with  it, 
it  was  burnt.  When  a  doctrine  can  lead  to  such  enormous  absurdities, 
is  it  not  doing  it  too  much  honour  to  combat  it  with  reasons  ? 

^  Panis  es,  et  panis  manebis. 


236  HISTORY    OF   THE    COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  III. 

instead  of  the  sacramental  words.  Are  there  still  any  such 
priests  ?  We  know  not,  and  it  is  not  for  us  to  inquire.  "We 
could  not  even  approve  of  people  saying,  as  is  sometimes  done, 
that  a  priest  cannot  believe  in  the  mass  ;  all  we  say  is,  and  this 
at  least  is  true,  that  it  must  be  more  difficult  for  him  to  believe 
it  than  any  one  else.  That  wafer  which  the  people  contemplate 
at  a  distance,  and  always  under  the  influence  of  a  certain  charm, 
he  sees  close  at  hand,  he  touches  it,  he  breaks  it,  he  eats  it  every 
day  ;  every  day  he  must  admit,  while  apart,  that  such  as  it  was 
before  consecration  the  same  it  has  every  appearance  of  being 
after.  That  wine  -which  he  alone  has  the  right  to  drink  he  finds 
possessing  at  the  altar  the  same  taste  and  the  same  properties 
as  at  his  ordinar}''  meals.  Those  words  which  are  thought  to 
work  the  miracle — where  shall  we  find  the  priest,  however 
pious,  who  cannot  recollect  many  occasions  on  which  he  has  pro- 
nounced them  without  seriously  pondering  them,  perhaps  with- 
out thniking  of  them  at  all,  perhaps  with  his  mind  full  of  bad 
thoughts  ?  And  shall  we  be  told  that  such  a  man  never  can 
doubt  the  virtue  of  such  an  operation  !  Never  feel  the  slightest 
difficulty  at  the  thought  of  a  result  so  enormously  out  of  propor- 
tion to  the  means  I  Charity  commands  us  to  believe  this  ;  but 
the  more  we  think  of  it  the  more  does  reason  refuse. 

At  Trent,  too,  before  proceeding  to  decree  transubstantiation, 
the  council  had  been  led  to  examine  whether  practice  correspond- 
ed with  theory  on  this  point,  and  the  existence  of  strange  disor- 
ders had  to  be  admitted.  Besides  the  small  degree  of  seriousness 
with  which  many  priests  set  themselves  to  perform  this  dread 
act,  there  were  few  churches  in  which  custom  did  not  give  its 
sanction  to  superstitions  or  abuses  more  or  less  contrary  to  the 
awfulness  of  the  sacrament.  These  abuses,  condemned  after- 
wards by  the  council,  have  generally  disappeared  ;  but  even  at 
this  day  the  forms  are  far  indeed  from  being  always  worthy  of 
the  essence.  Nothing  more  pompous,  no  doubt,  than  a  grand 
mass  at  Home,  at  Milan,  at  Vienna,  at  Paris  ;  did  God  descend  in 
visible  form  on  this  earth,  hardly  could  he  be  received  with 
greater  splendour.  But  for  one  of  these  grand  spectacle  masses, 
how  many  thousands  are  said  in  which  the  greatness  of  the 
mystery  vanishes  under  the  paltriness  of  the  forms  I  Shall  we 
be  told  that  the  cup  used  by  the  Saviour  was  very  probably 
neither  of  gold  nor  silver  ?  True,  and  it  were  misapphed  rail- 
leiy,  indeed,  were  we  to  attack  the  tin  vessels  of  the  poor  village 
priest ;  but  it  is  not  of  anything  paltry  in  that  M-ay  that  we 
mean  to  speak.  No.  Look  to  that  cathedral  in  which  so  many 
marvels  have  been  displayed  at  Christmas  or  Easter ;  look  to 
that  St.  Peter's  at  Rome  where  you  seem  to  have  witnessed  the 


/ 

Chap.  111.  1051.  ADORATION    OF  THE    HOST.  237 

pomps  of  heaven,  then  return  on  the  following  morning.  The 
tapers  have  been  put  out,  the  hangings  have  been  removed. 
No  one  is  at  the  liigh  aUar.  In  passing  before  a  small  chapel 
you  hear  a  few  words  murmured.  You  see  there,  in  the  corner, 
an  altar  for  a  priest,  and  a  boy  who  at  certain  moments  repeats 
with  the  utmost  rapidity  of  which  his  lips  are  capable  seme 
Latin  words  which  he  blunders.  The  priest  takes  no  notice  of 
this.  He  also  has  his  lesson  to  recite,  and  that  lesson  he  finds 
rather  long ;  he  may  have  recited  it  these  twenty,  these  thirty 
years,  perhaps  for  half  a  century.  At  last  he  says  his  last  Amen. 
He  walks  off  to  other  business,  and  the  boy  to  school.  And  this 
that  you  have  been  witnessing  is  the  mass  !  It  w^as,  if  we  are 
to  beheve  the  Roman  Church,  the  most  awful,  the  most  pro- 
foundly sacred  act  that  could  take  place  in  the  world  I  Ah  I 
Protestants  can  well  afford  to  proiess  their  disbelief  in  the  real 
presence,  and  to  avoid  celebrating  the  communion  Avith  pcmp 
and  shew ;  the  bread  and  the  wine  of  the  supper,  without  ceas- 
ing to  be  bread  and  wine  in  their  eyes,  meet  with  a  ver}'  dif- 
ferent respect  in  their  Churches  from  that  which  the  wafer — 
the  body  of  the  Saviour — daily  meets  with  in  those  of  the  Ro- 
man Catholics. 

Do  men  hope  to  compensate  by  the  adoration  of  the  wafer 
for  the  irreverence  with  which  it  is  so  often  treated  in  so  many 
masses  said  with  precipitation  or  mechanically  ?  Adoration  being 
regarded  as  one  of  the  consequences  of  the  real  presence,  it  too 
was  one  of  the  points  admitted  without  difficulty  by  the  council. 
And  yet  there  was  no  such  close  connexion  between  the  two  dog- 
mas as  seemed  to  be  thought.  Even  were  the  wafer  incontest- 
ably  the  body  of  Jesus  Christ,  it  may  still  be  doubted  whether 
it  be  agreeable  to  the  spirit  of  Christianity  to  adore  a  body,  be 
it  what  it  may,  however  divine  the  soul  to  which  it  serves  or 
may  have  served  as  an  envelope.  Will  it  be  said,  that  since 
we  honour  the  mortal  remains  of  great  men,  the  stronger  reason 
have  we  to  honour  those  of  the  Son  of  God  ?  Honour  them  ! 
Who  denies  that  ?  See  whether,  among  Protestants,  that  bread 
which  to  them  is  only  the  representation  of  Christ's  body,  be  not 
the  object  of  the  most  profound  respect.  But  between  the  high- 
est honours  and  adoration  the  distance  is  great,  it  is  immense. 
Honours  prejudge  nothing  as  to  the  nature  of  the  object  to  M^hich 
they  are  paid;  adoration  makes  that  object  a  God.  Can  a  body, 
then,  be  a  God  ?  No.  The  Church  itself  has  felt  this.  In 
order  to  get  at  the  deification  of  the  wafer,  it  was  necessary  that 
the  body  of  Jesus  Christ  should  have  a  certain  divinity  of  its 
own,  subsisting  even  after  the  departure  of  the  divine  soul  with 
which   that  body  had  been   animated.     "  Divinity,"  says   the 


238  HISTORY   OF    THE    COUNCU.  OF  TRENT.  Book  HI. 

Roman  Catechism,  "  never  deserted  it  even  in  the  sepulchre." 
Does  this  mean,  perad venture,  that  after  having  been  subject  to 
all  the  necessities  and  to  all  the  suHerings  of  the  flesh,  that  body, 
nevertheless,  would  not  have  corrupted  in  the  tomb  had  it  re- 
mained there  ?  In  that  case  it  must  be  confessed  that  the  wafer 
hardly  resembles  it,  seeing  that  like  every  other  kind  of  bread  it 
can  dry  up  and  moulder  away.  Be  that  as  it  may,  the  Cate- 
chism insists  much  on  this  idea,  it  being  the  necessary  comple- 
ment of  the  more  vague  decree  by  which  the  council  ordained 
the  adoration  of  the  wafer.  "  Not  only,"  does  it  say,  "  is  the 
true  body  of  Jesus  Christ,  to  wit,  all  that  is  proper  to  the  human 
body,  the  bones,  the  nerves,  contained  in  this  sacrament,  but, 
farther,  Jesus  Christ  ivliole  and  eyitirer  Thus  it  is  not  only  a 
body  that  is  there  under  this  morsel  of  paste,  there  is  himself, 
the  Saviour,  living,  thinking,  acting,  such,  in  a  word,  as  he  was 
on  the  day  of  the  supper.  It  must  be  admitted  that  the  pagans 
shewed  more  respect  for  their  gods.  The  man  who  would  have 
ventured  to  say  that  Jupiter  was  wliole  and  entire  in  one  of  his 
statues,  would  have  risked  passing  for  a  madman  or  an  impious 
wretch. 

The  Church  acknowledged,  however,  that  one  raiight  in  aU 
places  address  the  Saviour  in  prayer.  Will  he  hear  you  when 
on  your  knees  before  the  wafer  better  than  elsewhere  ?  No ;  for 
he  is  everywhere.  One  does  not  see  what  the  material  presence 
can  add  to  that  of  a  being  already  present  everywhere.  When 
we  speak  of  the  Deity  as  inhabiting  a  temple,  we  know  well  that 
it  is  a  figure ;  what  is  the  wafer  in  this  sense  but  a  temple,  and 
how  could  a  divme  being  be  any  more  enclosed  in  it  than  in  any 
temple  whatever  ?  This  would  lead  us  to  a  final  objection. 
What  purpose  is  really  served  by  transubstantiation  and  its  con- 
sequences? Does  it  augment  the  priest's  respect  for  the  supper? 
No  :  we  defy  any  man  to  find  in  any  Protestant  Church  any- 
thing comparable  to  the  perfunctory  character  of  common  masses. 
Does  it  augment  the  awe  felt  by  simple  believers  ?  No  :  the 
piety  of  the  two  parties  being  equal,  the  Protestant  communicant 
is  no  less  deeply  affected  than  the  Roman  communicant.  Does  it 
enhance  the  dignity  of  the  priesthood  in  the  eyes  of  the  people  ? 
No  :  we  have  already  remarked,  that  the  frequency  of  the 
miracle,  and  the  numerousness  of  the  priests,  have  made  it  quite 
a  common  affair.  Is  the  real  presence  necessary  for  the  interior 
efiect  of  the  sacrament  ?  The  Church,  to  preserve  her  con- 
sistency, has  been  obliged  to  maintain  this.  "  The  host,"  says 
the  Catechism,  "  does  not  change  into  our  substance,  like  bread 
and  wine."  What  then  becomes  of  it  ?  This  question  naturally 
suggests  itself;  and  hence  angry  disputes,  of  which  we  could 


Chap.  111.  1551.     THE   WORSHIPPED   WAFER    BECOMES   A  GOD.  239 

not  give  even  an  idea  without  soiling  this  page  with  the  most 
ignoble  details.  Innocent  III.,  in  his  Treatise  on  the  Mans} 
passes  them  complacently  under  review.  He  inquires  what 
would  become  of  the  wafer  if  eaten  by  an  animal,  a  mouse,  for 
example,  &c.,  &c.  After  having  sunk  as  low  as  would  appear 
to  be  possible,  "  there  are  other  questions,  to  be  sure,"  he  says, 
",but  in  these  matters  it  is  better  not  to  be  too  much  inquisitive 
than  to  be  inquisitive  about  too  much."  And,  to  say  the  truth, 
he  rightly  considered  himself  as  very  reserved  in  comparison  with 
many  others,  for  there  is  no  extravagance  that  has  not  been  said 
or  written  on  this  subject.  Returning  simply  then  to  our  first 
question,  "  Is  the  real  presence  necessary  for  the  interior  efi'ect 
of  the  sacrament?"  the  following  is  the  answer  we  would  give 
to  those  who  should  affirm  it :  Several  persons  equally  pious, 
equally  well  prepared,  communicate  together.  Among  the  wafers 
which  the  priest  is  about  to  give  them  there  is  one  which,  from 
some  oversight,  has  not  been  consecrated.  Christ  is  not  there ; 
it  is  mere  bread.  AYill  he  who  shall  receive  it  have  communi- 
cated ?  If  you  say  no,  you  insult  common  sense.  If  you  say 
yes,  what  purpose  is  served  by  transubstantiation  ? 

Although  it  tended,  which  we  have  denied,  to  augment  men's 
respect  for  the  supper,  for  the  priesthood,  and  for  religion  in 
general,  still  it  must  be  seen  whether  this  advantage  be  not 
more  than  counterbalanced  by  the  superstitions  that  flow  from 
it.  The  mere  adoration  of  the  wafer,  disengaged  though  it  were 
from  all  idolatrous  accompaniments,  is  at  once  an  immense  step 
in  that  pious  materialism  over  which  enlightened  Romanists  are 
the  first  to  groan.  The  worshipped  wafer,  we  have  said,  be- 
comes thereby  a  god ;  a  god  less  gross,  if  you  will,  than  a  statue 
of  wood  or  stone  would  be,  but  nevertheless  a  material  and 
visible  god.  Now,  though  there  may  be  some  apparent  ad- 
vantage in  fixing  the  eyes  and  the  mind  of  rude  populations  on 
a  visible  god,  not  the  less  is  it  a  breach  of  the  spirituality  of  the 
Christian  religion.  Instead  of  making  efforts  to  raise  mankind 
to  the  lofty  standard  of  Christian  ideas,  the  Roman  Church  has 
found  it  more  easy,  and,  above  all,  more  advantageous  to  bring 
Christianity  down  to  their  level.  The  adoration  of  the  wafer 
ere  long  ceased  to  be  limited  to  the  time  of  mass.  The  deified 
bread  remains  exposed  upon  the  altar.  Ceremonies,  festivals, 
processions  are  got  up  in  its  honour.  It  is  at  the  sound  of  cannon 
that  it  leaves  the  temples,  and  at  the  sound  of  cannon  that  it  re- 
enters them.  An  eminently  spiritual  religion  has  fixed  itself  and 
been  incarnated  in  the  most  material  part  of  an  act  instituted 
as  a  simple  memorial. 

^  Book  iv. 


240  HISTORY   OF  THE   COUNCIL  OF  TRENT.  Book  III. 

Whilst  one  party  among  the  divines  and  bishops  thus  fixed 
for  ever,  reserving  the  correction  of  some  abuses  in  detail,  the 
greatest  and  the  most  intolerable  of  the  Roman  abuses — others 
had  resumed  the  questions  of  discipline,  and  specially,  that  of 
episcopal  jurisdiction.  Their  object  was  to  settle  its  limits,  and 
still  more,  although  the  bishops  took  care  not  to  announce  this, 
to  put  an  end  to  encroachments  on  the  part  of  the  jurisdiction  of 
the  pope. 

"  Dare  any  of  you,  having  a  matter  against  another,"  says  St. 
Paul,'  "  go  to  law  before  the  unjust  and  not  before  the  saints 
(the  members  of  the  Church  ?)  .  .  .  If  then  ye  have  judgments 
of  things  pertaining  to  this  life,  set  them  to  judge  who  are  least 
esteemed  in  the  Church."  Such  was  the  first  foundation  of 
episcopal  jurisdiction.     It  is  hardly  necessary  to  remark  : 

1st,  That  St.  Paul  speaks  here  of  arbiters,  and  not  at  all  of 
judges  or  of  regular  courts. 

2d,  That  the  only  reason  he  gives  is,  that  civil  judges  are 
pagans.  Then,  Christianity  once  established,  and  the  courts  of 
justice  having  become  Christian,  the  recommendation  fell  to  the 
ground. 

3d,  That  he  speaks  of  the  Church,  of  the  members  of  the 
Church,  even  "  the  least  esteemed,"  says  he,  and  nowise  of  pas- 
tors in  particular. 

The  faithful,  nevertheless,  were  led,  particularly  during  the 
persecutions,  to  give  a  regular  shape  to  this  part  of  the  Church's 
internal  administration ;  the  bishop  naturally  found  hims.elf  at 
the  head  of  it.  When  Christianity  became  the  religion  of  the 
empire,  the  ecclesiastical  courts  had  acquired  too  much  consist- 
ency for  their  sudden  abolition  not  to  risk  being  an  outrage  to 
religion  and  the  clergy.  They  found  a  place  accordingly  in  the 
general  administration  of  justice  ;  episcopal  sentences  became 
obligatory  like  those  of  other  judges.  Anon  privileges  were  be- 
stowed on  these  courts.  Even  so  early  as  under  Constantine,  if 
one  of  the  parties  chose,  a  suit  might  be  transferred  from  the  civil 
judge  before  whom  it  had  commenced,  to  the  bishop's  court. 
Notwithstanding  the  less  favourable  arrangements  of  other 
emperors,  these  privileges  always  went  on  increasing.  The 
bishops  drew  at  last  into  their  courts  everything  that  touched 
more  or  less  remotely,  on  religion  and  the  Church ;  testaments, 
because  the  Church  was  deemed  to  be  the  guardian  of  orphans 
and  widows  ;  contracts  of  marriage,  because  marriage  was  a 
religious  act ;  engagements  of  all  sorts,  under  the  pretext  that 
the  oath,  a  religious  act,  formed  a  part  of  them.  Finally,  all 
the  power  which  princes  and  peoples  had  originally  conceded  to 

'  1  Cor.  vi. 


CHAP.  HI.  1551.  PAPAL  ENCROACHMENTS   ON    BISHOPS'   COURTS.     241 

the  episcopate  only  from  respect  for  religion,  and  without  the 
episcopate  arrogating  to  itself  any  part  of  it  as  a  right,  was  by 
a  gradual  advance  in  boldness  declared  to  be  independent  of  the 
civil  authority.  It  was  from  God,  from  God  alone,  and  directly 
Irom  God,  that  the  bishops  maintained  they  held  it. 

At  the  same  time,  as  isolated  bishops  had  no  great  success  in 
imposing  this  doctrine  on  princes,  they  had  been  compelled,  in 
this  as  in  everything  else,  to  close  their  ranks  around  the  pope ; 
they  had  been  forced  to  recognise  in  him  the  chief  of  this  vast 
judiciary  body,  pretending  to  have  been  instituted  by  Him  of 
whom  the  pope  claimed  to  be  the  representative  on  earth.  But 
Rome  gives  nothing,  even  to  her  own  servants,  without  making 
them  pay  for  it.  Availing  herself,  therefore,  of  the  need  which 
the  bishops  had  of  her,  in  resisting  the  civil  authority,  ere  long 
she  considered  them  in  their  character  of  judges,  only  as  insti- 
tuted by  her.  It  was  to  the  pope,  to  the  pope  alone,  that  God 
had  given  jurisdiction  ;  the  bishops  were  only  his  mandatories,  as 
the  civil  judges  are  those  of  their  prince.  But  while,  in  a  well- 
regulated  state,  the  prince  never  intervenes  in  the  administration 
of  justice,  the  practice  of  carrying  causes  by  appeal  to  Rome, 
adroitly  encouraged  by  the  popes,  had  become  universal.  The 
bishop  saw  all  important  causes  taken  away  from  him.  "When 
he  began  to  attend  to  a  process  before  him,  he  was  never  sure 
of  its  being  left  in  his  hands.  His  very  priests  might  slip  from 
his  grasp,  not  only  for  breaches  of  discipline,  but  even  for  mis- 
demeanours and  crimes.  Papal  jurisdiction,  it  will  be  seen,  had 
poached  largely  on  the  domains  of  episcopal  usurpation. 

No  man  in  the  council  had  shcAvn  any  wish  to  trace  things  to 
their  source,  and  to  ask  himself,  putting  abuses  out  of  the  ques- 
tion, what  was  the  foundation  of  the  assumed  right  from  which 
they  flowed.  Ecclesiastical  jurisdiction  might  have  had,  amid 
the  disorders  of  the  Middle  Ages,  more  than  one  happy  eflect ; 
but  services  rendered,  however  disinterested  they  may  have  been 
deemed,  which  assuredly  they  were  not,  never  could  create  a 
positive  right.  Accordingly,  long  before  the  Reformation,  and 
without  at  all  trenching  on  the  domain  of  doctrine,  more  than 
one  author,  to  the  great  satisfaction  of  the  civil  princes,  had  set 
himself  to  weigh  the  titles  of  the  episcopate,  and  had  found  them 
very  much  wanting.  On  going  back,  what  was  there  found  ? 
Either  the  concessions  made  by  princes,  or  nothing  ;  nothing  but 
the  Scripture,  that  is,  four  lines  of  St.  Paul,  which,  as  we  have 
seen,  said  rather  quite  the  contrary  of  what  the  Church  had 
found  in  them.^     In  1551,  after  so  many  works  on  public  law, 

'  We  have  seen  already  (in  Book  First)  ^vhat  is  to  be  thought  of  the 
fanious  passage,  "If  any  one  hear  not  tlio  Church." 

L 


242  HISTORY    OF   THE   COUNCIL    OF  TRENT.  Book  III. 

in  the  face  of  Charles  V.  and  the  Parhament  of  Paris,  the  ques- 
tion could  no  longer  be  one  of  law ;  it  was  necessary  for  the 
Church  to  keep  to  the  utmost  to  fact,  and  to  preserve  as  much 
of  that  as  possible,  considering  it  still  fortunate  that  the  princes 
did  not  speak  of  resuming  everything.  At  the  head  of  the  de- 
cree, accordingly,  there  was  no  declaration  of  principles.  Such 
being  the  case,  what  are  we  to  regard  as  the  Church's  doctrine 
on  this  point  ?  Is  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction  of  divine  right  ? 
On  the  side  of  the  council,  the  faithful  have  been  left  free  to  be- 
lieve it  to  be  so,  or  not ;  on  the  side  of  E.ome,  it  is  long  now  since 
no  such  liberty  has  been  allowed.  From  the  time  of  Gregory 
YIL,  the  popes  have  plainly  set  themselves  up  as  judges  of  the 
Christian  world.  Boniface  VIII.,  in  particular,  had  so  formally 
decreed  this,  that  one  does  not  see  how  it  can  fail  to  be  a  point 
of  faith  with  all  who  admit  the  pope's  infallibility. 

Thus  constantly  in  danger  of  coming  into  collision  with  either 
the  rights  of  the  pope  or  those  of  the  prmces,  the  council  could 
decide  nothing  of  importance.  Besides,  view  in  what  manner 
you  please,  in  theory,  the  jurisdiction  of  bishops,  it  would  have 
been  unreasonable  not  to  admit  the  superiority  of  that  of  the 
pope.  And  so  the  main  source  of  the  abuses  complained  of,  the 
appellate  jurisdiction  of  Home,  behoved  still  to  exist.  That  be- 
ing assumed,  what  restrictions  were  there  to  be  imposed  upon  it  ? 
The  independent  bishops  demanded  that  before  appealing,  the 
parties  should  be  compelled  to  wait  until  sentence  should  be  pro- 
nounced ;  they  desired,  also,  that  appeals  should  be  taken  from 
the  bishop  to  the  pope,  only  by  passing  through  the  intermediate 
jurisdiction  of  the  metropolitan.  These  reclamations,  however 
moderately  made,  found  little  echo  in  the  majority  of  the  assem- 
bly. The  Italian  bishops  were  the  first  to  suffer  from  the  papal 
power  ;  but  they  were  the  first  also  to  profit  by  it,  and  the  most 
interested  in  maintaining  it.  The  permission,  accordingly,  of 
appealing  from  the  bishop  to  the  pope  was  suffered  to  subsist 
without  passing  through  the  metropolitan's  court ;  the  council 
contented  itself  with  pointing  out  certain  classes  of  causes  in 
which  the  appeal  should  not  suspend  procedure,  and  could  not 
be  admitted  until  after  the  bishop  had  pronounced  sentence. 

Some  small  concession  had  also  to  be  made  on  the  article  of 
ecclesiastical  degradations.  A  priest,  as  a  general  principle, 
could  be  tried  only  by  the  Church ;  but  as  it  was  an  establish- 
ed rule  that  the  Church  could  not  condemn  to  death,  a  priest  ac- 
cused of  a  capital  crime  had  to  be  handed  over  to  the  civil  juris- 
diction. Now,  in  order  to  that,  he  had  to  be  degraded  ;  and  the 
endless  formalities  with  which  the  Church  had  encumbered  that 
act,  had  but  the  effect  at  last  of  allowing  many  crimes  to  go  un- 


Chat.  111.  1551.     SU13JECTi()N  OF  THE  STATE  TO  THE  CHURCH.  243 

punished.  For  the  tlcgradalioii  of  a  bishop,  thirteen  were 
required  ;  for  that  of  a  priest,  six  ;  for  a  mere  deacon,  three. 
Everywhere,  and  under  all  the  formalities,  might  be  traced  the 
grand  outlines  of  that  immense  scheme,  put  together  with  so 
much  ability,  for  placing  the  State  at  the  mercy  of  the  Church, 
even  in  the  very  things  in  which  she  affected  to  declare  her  in- 
competency. It  w^as  decided  that  a  priest  might  be  degraded 
by  a  single  bishop,  assisted  by  a  certain  number  of  abbots,  or 
failing  these,  a  certain, number  of  priests. 

These  decrees,  as  well  as  that  of  the  cucharist,  W'ere  published 
on  the  11th  of  October  (thirteenth  session).  The  ambiguous 
safe-conduct  which  was  to  be  transmitted  to  the  emperor  for  the 
Protestant  divines,  was  also  read.  They  had  asked,  so  it  was 
said,  in  an  appendix  to  the  decrees,  to  be  heard  on  divers  points, 
and  particularly  upon  the  communion  under  both  kinds.  On 
that  account,  it  Avas  added,  the  council  had  suspended  deciding 
on  those  points,  and  sent  them  the  safe-conduct.  This  was  far 
from  correct.  The  Protestants  had  not  asked  to  be  heard  on 
those  more  than  on  any  other  points,  and  to  say  the  truth,  they 
had  asked  for  nothing ;  but  there  must  needs  have  been  some 
form  for  granting  them  the  safe-conduct,  since  the  emperor  in- 
sisted upon  it,  and  this  was  the  form  that  best  saved  the  coun- 
cil's dignity. 

At  this  same  sitting  there  appeared  the  ambassadors  of  the 
Elector  of  Brandenburg.  Much  anxious  expectation  had  been 
felt  al5out  what  might  be  said  to  the  council  by  the  envoys  of  a 
Lutheran.  Protestants  looked  for  a  bold  speech  ;  Roman  Cath- 
olics durst  not  hope  for  more  than  cold  respect  and  unmeaning 
compliments.  Christopher  Strassen,  the  spokesman,  displeased 
everybody  ;  Protestants  by  his  submissiveness,  Romanists  by  the 
very  excess  of  a  submissiveness  which  was  infinitely  greater  than 
what  on  the  Elector's  part  could  be  sincere,  or  could  even  appear 
to  be  so. 

As  for  the  ambassador  from  Henry  II.,  he  had  set  off  imme- 
diately after  the  delivery  of  his  protest.  Yet  the  council's  reply 
to  the  king's  letter  was  read  as  if  he  had  been  present.  That 
reply  was  generally  calm  and  dignified.  The  king  was  be- 
sought, at  the  close,  to  send  his  prelates  to  Trent,  and  to  remem- 
ber his  title  of  m^st  Christian  king.  If  he  thought  oflence  had 
been  done  to  him,  let  him  sacrifice  his  oflended  feelings  to  the 
good  of  the  Church  and  the  peace  of  Europe. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

(1551.) 

SESSION  XTV.      PENANCE.      ABSOLUTION.      THE  CONFESSIONAL.      EX- 
TREME UNCTION. 

Complaints  against  the  divines — Regulations  on  tliat  head — The  sacra- 
ment of  Penance — The  confession — Scriptural  objections — Falsifica- 
tions and  sophisms — Let  every  man  examine  himself — To  loose  is  the 
most  miraculous  and  the  most  divine  of  powers — ^The  more  it  is  al- 
leged to  be  necessary,  the  more  is  it  objectionable — Have  the  Prot- 
estants renounced  what  is  reasonable  and  good  in  confession — What 
the  Church  ordains  at  present  is  not  what  was  recommended  in 
primitive  times  —  The  council  shuts  its  eyes  and  pursues  its  own 
course — Other  difficulties — In  what  manner  is  penance  a  sacrament 
— What  proves  too  much  proves  nothing — Was  the  right  to  bind  and 
loose  given  to  the  priests  alone — Reserved  cases — A  conclusion  drawn 
in  passing — ^What  there  is  most  false  and  most  dangerous  in  confes- 
sion— Good  results,  the  value  of  which,  however,  must  not  be  exag- 
gerated— Peoples — Kings — Phrases  and  facts — Absolution — Absolute 
or  conditional — Logically  it  can  only  be  absolute — Questions  ad- 
dressed to  a  good  woman — Deplorable  results,  to  which  everything 
concurs — Inconveniences  in  detail — The  Cornpendium — Admissions — 
Conclusion — Extreme  unction — One  Apostle  only  speaks  of  it — Scrip- 
tural discussion — Contradiction — Difficulties  arising  out  of  the  only 
passage  that  can  be  adduced  in  favour  of  this  sacrament — Elders  and 
priests — Formula  in  common  use — Reiteration — Extreme  imction  oi 
little  use,  and  often  dangerous — Fresh  discussions  on  episcopal  juris- 
diction— Numerous  abuses — Insufficient  corrections — Dispensations 
more  rare  but  more  dear — Fourteenth  Session. 

The  day  following,  on  meeting  again  in  congregation,  great 
complaints  were  made  against  the  divines.  In  the  course  of  the 
last  discussions,  twenty  times  over  had  they  thrown  all  into  dis- 
order by  their  subtleties  and  contentions.  It  had  been  thought 
necessary,  therefore,  to  fix  the  order  in  which  they  should  speak. 
Those  from  the  pope  were  to  be  allowed  to  speak  first,  next  those 
from  the  emperor,  then  those  from  kings,  electors,  simple  princes, 
kc.  The  number  of  times  that  each  should  be  allowed  to  speak, 
and  the  time  he  was  not  to  exceed,  were  also  fixed.  Finally, 
there  was  a  renewal  of  the  order,  that  they  should  always  com- 
mence with  proofs  taken  from  Scripture.  An  illusory  concession 
this,  as  we  have  already  said,  seeing  that  there  was  always  an 
understanding,  that  in  default  of  scriptural  proofs,  they  might  be 


Chap.  IV.  1551.      PENANCE— TRICKS    IN  TRANSLATION.  ii45 

taken  from  the  Fathers,  and,  failing  the  Fathers,  from  the  very 
accommodating  arsenal  of  tradition. 

The  sacrament  of  Penance,  with  "which  the  council  w^as  about 
to  occupy  itself,  is  not,  at  the  first  view  of  it,  a  point  on  which 
Roman  Cathohcism  is  reduced  to  this.  "Whatsoever  ye  shall 
bind  on  earth,  shall  be  bound  in  heaven."  "  "Whosesoever  sins 
ye  remit,  they  are  remitted  unto  them  ;  and  whosesoever  sins  ye 
retain,  they  are  retained."  Such  are  the  words  which  it  will  be 
enough,  it  would  appear,  to  inscribe  on  all  the  confessionals,  in 
order  to  shut  the  mouths  of  all  the  adversaries  of  the  Roman 
confession.  We  can,  therefore,  reply  to  them  only  by  inquiring 
whether,  in  the  view  of  those  to  whom  they  were  addressed  by 
Jesus  Christ,  these  words  bore  the  meaning  attributed  to  them 
since  ? 

But,  of  a  thousand  persons  to  whom  the  collection  of  the 
Epistles,  including  the  Acts,  should  be  given  to  peruse  for  the 
first  time,  we  ask  if  tlicre  would  be  one  who,  on  being  asked  to 
trace  the  primitive  histoiy  of  the  Church,  as  represented  in  these 
\vritings,  would  give  Confession,  in  the  Roman  sense,  a  place  in 
it  ?  We  ask  whether  those  often  quoted  words,  "  Confess  your 
faults  one  to  another,'"'^  far  from  giving  any  support  to  the  Ro- 
man Confession,  be  not  rather  positively  contrary  to  it?  We 
ask  whether  those  other  words,  as  often  quoted,  "  And  many 
that  believed  came  and  confessed,"^  do  not  clearly  indicate  a 
mere  act  of  humility,  without  reference  to  any  obhgation,  any 
general  law  ?  We  ask  if  St.  Paul,  in  his  directions  on  the  sup- 
per, could  possibly  have  confined  himself  to  concluding  with  these 
words,  "  But  let  a  man  examine  himself  V^  We  ask,  in  fine,  if 
it  be  credible  that  among  so  many  councils  and  commands  ad- 
dressed to  so  many  Churches,  there  should  not  be  found  a  single 
direct  mention  of  a  thing  of  such  daily  and  universal  occuiTence, 
if  it  existed  then  at  all  ? 

This  absence  of  all  direct  and  available  mention  we  could  not 
better  prove,  than  by  shewing  what  the  Church  has  been  obhged 
to  cite,  in  order  to  give  a  faint  colour  of  an  evangehcal  and  scrip- 
tural kind  to  Confession. 

In  the  first  place,  wherever  it  could  be  done  without  too  much 
violence  to  the  context,  to  rejJeiit  has  been  translated  to  do  i^cn- 
ancc,^  an  expression  which,  in  common  parlance,  implies  the 
idea  of  the  sacrament.  Thus,  in  the  decree  that  the  council 
proceeded  to  make,  this  abuse  of  words  re-occurs  thrice.  "  Re- 
pent and  do  pena7icc,''  says  Ezekiel.  "Unless  ye  do  fenancc 
ye  shall  perish,"  says  Jesus  Christ  in  St.  Luke.  "  Do  'penance 
and  be  baptized  every  one  of  you,"  says  St.  Peter  in  the  Acts. 
'  James  v.  16.      =  Acts  xix.  18.      ^  1  Cor.  xi.      *  Poenitentiam  agere. 


246  HISTORY   OF  THE    COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  III. 

In  this  last  passage,  besides  the  play  upon  words,  let  us  note  a 
singular  inadvertence.  The  council  declares  that  penance  is  a 
sacrament  for  those  only  who  have  received  baptism.  Seeing, 
then,  that  St.  Peter  here  puts  baptism  after  repentance  or  pen- 
ance, he  cannot,  according  to  the  decree  itself,  refer  to  the  sacra- 
ment of  penance. 

But  it  is  mainly  in  the  Roman  Catechism  that  we  must  look 
for  the  efibrts  that  have  been  made  to  keep  the  words  of  Jesus 
Christ — "  Whatsoever  ye  have  bound,"  &c.,  from  the  isolation 
in  which  they  are  left  in  the  midst  of  the  New  Testament,  by 
the  sacramental  interpretation  of  them.  First,  before  instituting 
the  sacrament,  Jesus  Christ  is  said  to  have  insinuated  it,  when, 
on  raising  Lazarus  from  the  dead,  he  caused  him  to  be  unboicnd 
by  his  disciples.  "  It  was,"  says  St.  Augustine,  quoted  by  the 
Catechism,  ''  to  shew  that  priests  have  the  power  of  unbind- 
ing T  Note  that  the  passage  runs  thus  in  St.  John,  "  Jesus 
saith  unto  them,  loose  him  and  let  him.  go ;"  and  as  the  evan- 
gelist had  spoken  of  a  crowd  of  bystanders,  it  cannot  be  affirmed 
that  this  them  applies  exclusively  to  the  disciples,  who,  moreover, 
were  nowise  priests,  seeing  that,  according  to  a  decision  of  the 
council,  it  was  not  until  he  was  just  about  to  leave  them,  that 
Jesus  Christ  stamped  them  with  that  character.  Priests  or  not 
priests,  in  what  science,  in  what  branch  of  human  study,  would 
such  an  abuse  of  words,  of  ideas,  of  deductions,  be  tolerated  ? 
"  At  whatever  hour,"  the  Catechism  goes  on  to  say,^  "  a  sinner 
desires  to  repent,  our  Lord  has  taught  us  not  to  reject  him." 
Q,uite  right ;  but  where  did  he  particularly  teach  this  ?  "  When 
St.  Peter  asked^  him  how  many  times  we  must  forgive  sinners^ 
and  if  seven  times  were  enough  ?"  Sinners,  you  see  how  it  is. 
St.  Peter  received  power  to  forgive  sins.  He  asks  for  directions 
as  to  the  manner  of  doing  so.  What  more  clear  ?  There  is  but 
one  difficulty  ;  it  is  that  the  Apostles  said  quite  another  thing. 
"  How  oft  shall  my  brother  sin  against  me  and  I  forgive  himV^ 
Of  sins  and  sinners,  not  a  word.  Elsewhere  the  Catechism 
quotes  these  words  faithfully,  but  always  with  an  eflbrt  to  enlist 
them  into  its  system.  "  Penance,"  it  says,  "  is  not,  like  baptism, 
a  sacrament  that  cannot  be  repeated ; "  and  the  proof  is  that 
Jesus  Christ  sets  no  limits  to  the  pardon  of  offences  :  it  is  natu- 
ral, then,  that  he  sets  none,  he  who  is  so  infinitely  good,  to  the  re- 
mission of  sins  by  the  sacrament  of  penance.  In  this  manner, 
it  will  be  seen,  there  is  no  reason  why  penance,  instead  of  being 
nowhere,  should  not  be  everywhere.  To  the  very  words,  "  let  a 
man  examine  himself,''  all  is  converted  by  the  Catechism  into 
something  favourable  to  confession.     "  Let  a  man  examine  him- 

'  Part  i.  Art.  10.  =  Matt  xviii. 


CiiAP.  IV.  1551.     SILENCE   OF  THE   APOSTLES   ON    CONFESSION.       2i'7 

self,"  and  if  he  fiiuLs  liiniself  in  a  state  of  sin,  let  him  beware  of 
cornmnnicatinf^  without  having  gone  to  confession.  "  Give  me 
four  hncs  of  a  man's  writing,"  said  llicheheu,  "  and  I  will  un- 
dertake to  find  enough  in  them  to  have  him  hanged."  "Give. 
mc  four  lines  of  Scripture,"  the  Roman  Church  seems  to  say, 
"  and  I  undertake  to  find  in  them  all  that  I  have  taught." 

Such,  then,  is  our  first  objection  :  sacramental  penance,  con- 
fession, are  not  in  Scripture.  Il-^.d  we  to  write  a  theological 
treatise,  we  should  now  set  ourselves  to  investigate  what  we  are 
to  luiderstand  by  this  power  of  binding  and  loosing,  of  remitting 
and  retaining,  with  which  the  Saviour  invested  his  Apostles. 
We  should  see  whether  their  altogether  exceptional  position,  the 
perpetual  aid  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  the  possession  of  other  mirac- 
ulous gifts,  not  transmissible,  w^ould  permit  us  to  believe  in  the 
transmission  of  this.  And  yet  it  was  in  reality  the  most  mirac- 
ulous of  them  all.  "Thy  sins  be  forgiven  thee,"  said  the  Sav- 
iour to  a  paralytic,  and  anon  the  Jews  were  more  surprised  at 
those  words  than  at  the  most  amazing  miracles.  "  Who,"  they 
exclaimed,  "  can  forgive  sins  but  God  only  ?"  They  were  right. 
If  priests  have  not  inherited  the  power  of  performing  other  mira- 
cles, whence  should  they  have  retained  the  gift  of  performing 
this  ?  In  writing  to  Timothy  two  epistles  on  the  rights,  the 
duties,  the  prerogatives,  the  functions  of  the  minister  of  the  Gos- 
pel, what  says  St.  Paul  about  this  divine  function  ?  Nothing  ; 
nothing  even  which  any  one  has  been  bold  enough  to  attempt  to 
twist  into  such  a  meaning. 

Accordingly,  either  the  Apostles  did  not  believe  themselves 
entitled  to  communicate  this  power,  or,  which  is  still  more  likely, 
they  were  far  from  interpreting  it  in  the  Roman  sense.  When 
St.  Paul,  on  being  assailed  as  a  minister,  sets  himself  to  enumer- 
ate his  privileges  as  such,^  he  says  nothing,  absolutely  nothing 
of  this. 

Premising  these  remarks,  what  most  fortifies  the  objection 
drawn  from  the  silence  of  the  Apostles,  is  the  very  importance 
that  has  been  given  to  this  sacrament.  The  more  you  shall  say 
that  it  is  necessary,  the  more  reasonable  will  you  make  it  for 
others  to  think  it  impossible  that  the  Apostles  should  never  have 
spoken  of  it.  But,  with  the  exception  of  baptism,  the  necessity 
for  which  is  deemed  to  be  absolute,  no  sacrament,  according  to 
the  council,  is  so  necessary  as  this ;  and  even,  interpreting  the 
decree  literally,  it,  too,  is  absolutely  necessary.  "  God  being- 
rich  in  mercy,  he  has  granted  a  second  remedy  of  life  to  those 
who,  after  baptism,  shall  have  delivered  themselves  to  sin,  and 
this  remedy  is  the  sacrament  of  penance,  whereby  the  benefit  of 

'  In  various  parts  of  his  epistles,  and  particularly  2  Cor.  x.  and  xi. 


248  HISTORY  OF   THE  COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  HI. 

Christ's  death  is  appUed  to  those  who  have  fallen  after  baptism. " 
Such  is  the  opening  of  the  decree.  AYithout  saying  in  so  many 
terms  that  this  is  the  only  remedy,  the  council  speaks  of  it  as  the 
only  one,  nor  does  it  mention  any  other.  For  original  sin,  bap- 
tism ;  for  all  subsequent  sins,  the  sacrament  of  penance  ;  no  other 
means,  no  other  door.  AYould  you  have  proof?  Go  to  the 
Roman  Catechism,  the  avowed  interpreter  of  the  decrees  of 
Trent  —  "It  is  not  enough,"  it  says,  "to  believe  that  Jesus 
Christ  has  instituted  confession ;  we  must  farther  be  persuaded 
that  he  has  commanded  the  practice  as  necessary"  (as  absolutely 
necessary,  says  the  French  translation).  "  In  like  manner,"  it 
says  a  little  farther  on,  "  as  one  cannot  enter  into  a  place  that  is 
shut,  unless  by  means  of  him  who  has  the  keys,  no  more  can  one 
enter  into  heaven,  when  he  has  shut  the  door  against  himself  by 
a  mortal  sin,  unless  the  priest,  to  whom  Jesus  Christ  has  com- 
mitted the  keys,  shall  open  the  gate  to  him.  Otherwise,  in  fact, 
the  use  of  the  keys  would  be  entirely  null ;  and  could  the  door 
be  opened  by  any  other  means,  in  vain  should  he  to  whom  the 
power  of  the  keys  has  been  given,  interdict  entrance  to  any  one." 
Here,  then,  we  have  the  power  not  only  of  loosing,  but  of  bind- 
ing. Impossible  to  enter  unless  the  priest  shall  open  :  impossible 
to  enter  if  he  shall  shut.  Ah,  what  infamous  treason  must  have 
been  that  of  the  Apostles,  if,  although  quite  aware  of  such  a  secret, 
they  have  not  written  it  on  ever}'  page  of  their  book,  and  have 
allowed  so  many  wretched  creatures  to  perish  under  the  delusion 
that  heaven  stands  open  to  whosoever  believes,  repents,  and  loves  I 
We  shall  not  stop  to  shew  how  far  down  we  must  come  from 
those  early  times,  to  find  some  citations,  some  facts,  that  begin 
really  to  signify  something  in  favour  of  the  Koman  penance. 
Really,  we  say,  for  it  is  clear  that  we  cannot  accept  in  support  of 
Confession  properly  so  called — obligatory,  necessary,  sacramental 
Confession — what  the  early  Fathers  have  written  about  a  free 
and  irregular  confession,  a  simple  avowal  made  to  a  priest  with 
the  view  of  easing  the  conscience,  obtaining  of  advice,  and  re- 
ceiving from  the  mouth  of  his  minister  the  assurances  of  God's 
love  and  mercy.  Such  confession  the  Protestants  have  never 
rejected.  It  is  expressly  recommended  by  Luther,  in  his  Cate- 
chism, published  in  1530.  Calvin,  in  a  letter  to  Farel,^  congrat- 
ulates himself  on  the  faithful  being  in  the  habit  of  coming  and 
opening  their  minds  to  him  before  communicating.  At  the  pre- 
sent day,  if  that  practice  is  not  so  general  as  one  could  wish,  it 
is,  nevertheless,  much  more  so  than  Roman  Catholics  believe, 
and  would  be  much  more  general  still,  were  it  not  that  people 
dread  the  abuses  that  result  from  the  Roman  confession.     "  The 

'  May  1340. 


Chap.  IV.  1551.     IN  WHAT  SENSE  IS  PENANCE  A  SACRAMENT?        249 

pastor,"  says  a  Roman  Catholic  writer,^  "  is  not  authorized  to 
enter  the  house  of  his  parishioner,  and  to  ask  him  to  account  for 
the  tears  he  sees  him  shed.  He  cannot,  without  dread  of  indis- 
cretion, interrogate  the  man  who  suiicrs,  groans,  murmurs,  or 
blasphemes."  It  would  be  difiicult  to  write  anything  in  more 
direct  contradiction  to  facts.  In  Protestant  states,  it  is  a  tliintr 
unheard  of,  and  a  public  scandal  for  a  door  to  be  shut  upon  the 
pastor  ;  is  this  the  case  in  Roman  Catholic  states  (those  of  course 
in  which  the  clergy  do  not  reign  absolutely)?  How  much  dis- 
trust I  What  affronts,  often  unjust,  no  doubt,  yet  almost  un- 
known among  the  Protestant  clergy !  This  is  easily  accounted 
for.  The  one  presents  himself  as  a  friend,  the  other  as  a  mas- 
ter. The  one  says  that  he  can  shut  heaven ;  the  other  does  not 
say  that  he  can  open  it,  but  he  sends  you  to  him  who  alone,  let 
people  say  what  they  will,  has  veritably  the  keys  thereof. 

Will  it  be  said  that  the  Church  could,  for  the  good  of  souls, 
render  obligatory  that  which  at  first  she  was  content  to  recom- 
mend ?  This  opinion  would  be  at  once  in  disaccordance  with  that 
which  traces  up  to  Jesus  Christ  the  institution  and  the  necessity 
of  the  sacrament  of  penance,  an  opinion,  nevertheless,  held  by 
the  council.  But  the  question  does  not  lie  there.  It  must  be 
proved,  before  all,  that  what  the  Church  commanded  in  the  six- 
teenth century  is  really  what  she  recommended  in  the  first  or 
the  second.  And  here,  as  we  have  already  said,  we  have  what 
is  altogether  impossible,  what  many  divines,  at  the  council, 
begged  in  vain  that  the  members  would  examine.  How  could 
they  consent  to  such  a  request  ?  From  the  very  first  step  taken 
in  this  course,  the  council  would  have  found  itself  encompassed 
with  more  elucidations  on  the  subject  than  the  majority  could 
desire,  ay,  more  than  even  those  who  proposed  this  inquiry 
would  have  liked,  for  hardly  could  they  have  anyhow  contrived 
after  that  to  maintain  that  penance  was  necessary,  or  obligatory, 
or  even  so  much  as  a  sacrament.  They  thought  it  better  to  shut 
their  eyes  and  say,  with  an  assurance  proportioned  to  the  little 
truth  there  was  in  the  assertion,  that  such  had  been  always  the 
unanimous  opinion  of  all  the  Fathers.^ 

All  these  difficulties,  however,  were  not  got  rid  of.  At  the 
seventh  session  penance  had  been  declared  a  sacrament.  There 
was  no  need,  therefore,  of  going  back  to  that ;  but  it  had  still 
to  be  explained  how  and  in  what  sense  it  is  a  sacrament. 

Now,  whole  ages  had  witnessed  keen  disputes  in  the  schools 
on  the  question,  where  exactly  lay  that  which  caused  this  desig- 
nation to  be  given  to  it.     The  sacrament  of  i^cnance  evidently 

*  Audin,  Vic  de  Calvin  (Life  of  Calvin). 
2  Universorum  Patrum  consensus  semper. 


250  HISTORY   OF   THE   COUNCIL  OF   TRENT.  Book  III. 

does  not  lie  in  penance,  or  repentance,  itself.  A  man  who  should 
repent  of  his  sins,  but  without  having  had  recourse  to  Confession, 
would  not  pass  for  having  received  it.  Is  it  in  the  confession 
of  sins  ?  No  ;  for  absolution  must  follow.  It  is  in  absolution 
then  ?  No  more  in  that  than  the  other  ;  confession  must  have 
preceded  it.  The  only  conclusion,  you  think,  must  be  that  it 
lies  in  the  union  of  these  two  things.  You  will  be  told  that  a 
sacrament  is  a  sign,  and  that  there  must  be  something  material 
and  actual  in  it  in  order  to  its  being  so.  In  baptism  we  have 
water ;  in  the  supper  bread  and  wine  ;  in  penance  what  shall  it 
be  ?  And  so  you  are  forced  to  make  it  reside  in  the  very  words 
of  absolution  pronounced  by  the  priest.  This  was  what  the 
council  did.^     We  shall  see  ere  long  to  what  it  leads  ? 

But  there  was  another  difficulty.  The  third  canon  anathema- 
tizes whosoever  shall  deny  that  Jesus  Christ  established  the  sacra- 
ment of  penance  by  these  words:  "Whosesoever  sins  ye  remit, 
whosesoever  sins  ye  retain,"  &c.  Now,  it  was  observed  that  they 
had  often  been  understood  as  applying  not  to  this  sacrament  in 
particular,  not  even  to  repentance  in  general,  but  to  all  the  means 
by  which  the  remission  of  sins  may  be  obtained,  and  in  which  the 
priest  may  be  called  to  intervene.  Those  words,  in  fact,  however 
little  they  naay  bear  the  meaning  that  has  been  given  to  them, 
have  necessarily  a  far  wider  signification,  which  they  knew  not 
how  to  suppress.  Confession  is  not  naentioned  in  them.  Not  a 
word  is  said  as  to  any  previous  formality,  or  any  condition  what- 
ever to  be  fulfilled  by  the  person  whose  sins  are  to  be  forgiven. 
Therefore,  if  the  right  exist  at  all  it  is  absolute.  Wherever  the 
priest  shall  see  sentiments,  circumstances,  what  you  will,  in  fine, 
seeming  to  him  to  call  for  absolution,  on  him  alone  will  depend 
the  granting  of  it ;  he  could,  in  a  word,  condemn  or  absolve, 
without  being  subject  to  any  rule  but  his  own  good  pleasure, 
whomsoever  he  happens  to  meet.  The  Roman  Church  has 
thought  to  be  prudent  in  not  recognising  in  him  the  unlimited 
possession  of  this  power,  but  in  this  has  only  brought  upon  her- 
self a  serious  objection.  What  proves  too  much  proves  nothing. 
Let  us  repeat,  if  the  priest  have  the  power  to  bind  and  loose,  and 
if  that  power  be  founded  on  the  words  quoted,  it  is  not  limited 
to  Confession ;  it  is  indefinite.  This  objection,  it  may  w^ell  be 
thought,  was  not  listened  to. 

Yet  another  difficulty  meets  us,  still  under  the  Roman  point 
of  view.  The  tenth  canon  anathematizes  those  who  shall  say 
that  the  right  of  binding  and  loosing  has  not  been  given  to  the 

'  Docet  paiicta  synodus  sacramenti  poeiiitentiffi  formam,  in  qua  prsc- 
cipue  ipsius  vis  sita  est,  in  illis  miiiistri  verbis  positam  esse:  Ego  te  ab- 
solyo. 


Chap.  IV.  1551.     DIVERSITIES    OF  OPINION    ON   PENANCE.  251 

priests  alone.  Now,  some  of  the  divines  remonstrated  that  tliis 
was  a  matter  of  discipHne,  not  of  faith.  "  In  the  primitive 
times,"  they  said,  "  we  see  the  sacerdotal  functions  discharged, 
in  more  than  one  rising  church,  by  men  who  evidently  were  not 
priests  in  the  modern  sense  of  the  word."  If  they  baptized,  if 
they  administered  the  supper,  there  is  nothing  to  prove  that  they 
did  not  confess,  and  it  is  to  this  that  we  may  reasonably  refer 
the  exhortation  given  by  St.  James — "  Coniess  your  sins  one 
jto  another."  The  objectors,  accordingly,  drew  this  conclusion, 
not  that  the  Church  had  done  wrong  in  depriving  the  laity  of 
Confession,  but  that,  since  this  Avas  a  matter  of  discipline,  and 
not  of  faith,  it  ought  not  to  be  made  the  subject  of  an  anathema. 
Thus  the  divines,  as  well  as  others,  went  wrong  in  tracing  Con- 
fession to  the  earliest  times  of  the  Church  ;  but  they  were  right 
in  saying  that  it  had  not  always  been  exclusively  in  the  hands 
of  the  priests,  and  that  an  act  that  was  tolerated  by  the  Apostles 
could  not  be  condemned  as  contrary  to  the  faith.  But  they  were 
not  listened  to. 

Others  remonstrated  also,  in  the  same  point  of  view,  against  the 
dogmatical  condemnation  of  the  idea  that  a  mere  priest  can  ab- 
solve from  every  kind  of  sins.  They  did  not  deny  the  propriety 
of  reserving  certain  cases  to  the  bishops  and  the  pope  ;  but  still 
they  thought  that  this  distinction,  omitted  by  Jesus  Christ  in  the 
institution  of  the  sacrament,  could  not  thenceforth  be  more  than 
an  aflair  of  discipline,  not  of  divine  right  or  of  faith.  Hso  atten- 
tion was  paid  to  them. 

Setting  aside  the  value  of  these  details  as  precious  examples 
of  the  diversities  of  opinion  then  to  be  found  in  the  Church,  on 
so  many  things  that  are  taught  in  our  day  as  matters  that  have 
been  settled  from  the  earliest  antiquity,  they  would  still  be  val- 
uable as  corroborative  of  what  we  have  said  elsewhere  on  the 
medley  the  council  had  made  of  discipline  and  faith.  Among 
the  fifteen  anathemas  of  the  decree  on  penance,  we  have  seen 
three  at  least  that  bear  on  objects  manifestly  disciplinary.  From 
these,  consequently,  a  Roman  Catholic  is  entitled  to  withhold  the 
respect  due  to  what  is  infallible  ;  but  it  is  evident,  on  the  other 
hand,  that  the  council  did  not  so  understand  it,  and  that  its  in- 
fallibihty,  in  its  own  eyes,  was  quite  as  much  engaged  on  these 
as  on  other  points.  If  they  are  incorrect,  Avhat  becomes  of  the 
authority  of  all  the  rest  ? 

It  is  not  what  is  most  false  and  dangerous  in  the  Romanist 
doctrine  of  Confession  that  has  subjected  it  to  most  assaults.  It 
has  become  too  much  a  habit,  especially  among  those  Roman 
Catholics  Avho  reject  it,  to  consider  it  as  only  a  yoke  imposed  by 
the  clergy  on  the  people.     It  is  a  yoke,  no  doubt,  and  we  deem 


252  HISTORY  OF  THE   COUNCIL  OF   TRENT.  Book  III. 

those  to  be  fully  in  the  right  who  throw  it  off;  but  if  you  attack 
it  only  as  a  yoke,  you  are  greatly  in  risk  of  finding  yourself  on 
bad  ground.  To  all  you  may  have  to  say  on  the  inconveniences 
of  a  spiritual  superintendence,  which  so  easily  degenerates  into 
espionage  and  tyranny,  numerous  instances  will  be  adduced  in 
reply,  in  which  its  influence  has  been  beneficial,  nay,  it  will  even 
be  said,  necessary.  Crimes  abandoned  or  expiated,  restitutions, 
reconciliations,  divers  returns  to  religion  and  virtue — such  are 
happily  not  unfrequent  facts  in  the  history  of  Confession. 

Now,  the  more  unjust  it  would  be  to  deny  these  facts,  the  more 
should  we  err  in  acceptmg  them  as  arguments. 

First  of  all,  let  us  beware  of  allowing  their  value  to  be  exag- 
gerated. Are  the  Roman  Catholic,  on  the  whole,  more  moral 
than  the  Protestant  populations  of  Christendom  ?  JSTobody,  to 
our  knowledge,  has  yet  maintained  this ;  nobody,  at  least,  who 
has  seen  with  his  own  eyes  and  judged  fairly.  Much  more,  the 
most  Roman  Catholic  countries  are  those  which  can  least  bear 
the  comparison.  What  do  we  find  contributed  most  to  shake 
Luther's  faith  as  a  Romanist  ?  His  journey  to  Italy  ;  still  more 
his  residence  at  Rome.  And  yet  he  did  not  come  from  a  coun- 
try of  saints  and  angels.  Germany,  too,  had  its  vices  ;  the  Ger- 
man clergy  had  their  turpitudes  ;  but  all  that  was  little,  it  was 
almost  nothing  compared  with  what  Luther  had  to  witness  in 
the  ancient  seat  of  the  popes.  Tliirty  years  afterwards,  he  could 
never  say  enough  of  the  painful  surprise  with  which  it  had  over- 
whelmed him.  "  For  a  hundred  thousand  florins,"  he  would 
say  to  his  friends,  "  I  would  not  have  missed  the  sight  of  Rome. 
I  might  dread  being  too  severe  ;  but  you  see  I  am  cool.  Never 
could  I  say  too  much  about  it."  "  The  nearer  people  live  to  the 
capital  of  Christendom,"  writes  Macchiavel,^  "  the  less  will  you 
find  in  them  of  a  Christian  spirit.  We  Italians  have  chiefly  the 
Church — the  priests,  to  thank  for  having  become  profligate  and 
ungodly  wretches."  Macchiavel  did  not  go  there  from  the  sanc- 
tity of  a  monastery.  But  let  us  dismiss  words — they  may  be 
somewhat  too  strong — and  keep  to  the  fact,  universally  admit- 
ted at  that  epoch,  that  nowhere  was  there  less  morality  than  in 
Italy. 2  Has  that  fact  undergone  a  change  ?  The  inquiiy  is 
too  delicate  for  us  to  pursue  it.  But  to  those  who  may  reproach 
us  for  having  merely  pointed  to  it,  we  would  say,  were  you  to 
draw  up  a  general  table  of  Christian  nations,  placing  them  in 
the  order  of  their  morals,  would  the  Roman  Cathohc  be  at  the 
beginning  or  at  the  end  ?     Had  you  to  put  down  in  such  a  table 

'  Dissertation  on  Livy. 

^  We  know  what  was  the  ordinary  theme  of  Savonarola's  preachings 
and  predictions. 


Chap. IV.  1551.     VALUE  OF  THE  CONFESSIONAL  EXAGGERATED.       253 

the  Roman  Catholic  people  alone,  where  would  you  place  those 
who  attended  Confession  most  ?  Hear  what  Lamennais  said, 
at  an  epoch  when  he  thought  himself  more  Roman  Catholic  than 
any  one  else.  He  speaks  of  Spain  ;  and  mark  well  whether  it 
bo  of  Spain  only  that  he  could  speak  thus  :  "  People  indulge  in 
all  violations  of  the  (moral)  precepts,  taking  refuge  under  the 
shelter  of  religious  worship.  The  compensation  which  some 
consciences  dream  of  establishing  between  such  or  such  a  crime 
and  such  or  such  an  act  of  devotion,  their  unreasoning  {naive) 
security  in  habits  of  vice,  the  strange  motives  of  that  security, 
those  souls,  full  of  hell,  and  at  ease  before  the  altar,  all  this  pro- 
duces amazement  and  consternation."  "  Behold,"  says  the  au- 
thor, "  the  great  misfortune  of  Catholicism  in  Spain  I"  Misfor- 
tune of  Christianity,  we  admit ;  but  why  say  misfortune  of 
Catholicism  ?  Do  we  see  it  complained  of,  or  groaned  over  ? 
Do  the  clergy  in  those  lands  seem  in  the  least  to  conceive  that 
there  can  be  any  other  Catholicism  than  their  own  ?  Has 
Rome  ceased  to  regard  their  inhabitants  as  her  most  devoted 
children  ?  We  do  not  say  that  she  approves  of  such  a  state  of 
degradation  ;  but  this  state  of  things  is  profoundly  associated  with 
all  the  methods  she  employs  for  being  and  remaining  mistress 
of  men's  souls. 

What  we  have  said  of  nations  we  might  say  of  kings.  Look 
at  your  sovereigns  who  have  confessors  ;  have  they  been,  are  they 
now,  generally  more  moral,  more  honourable,  than  Protestants  ? 
No  one,  we  think,  can  any  more  maintain  this.  A  few  princes 
will  be  cited,  whom  Confession  may  probably  have  made  better 
than  they  would  otherwise  have  been  ;  many  might  be  cited  for 
Avhom  it  was  nothing  but  a  pillow  for  lulling  the  conscience 
asleep  amid  immoralities,  and  sometimes  amid  crimes.  More 
than  one  has  been  seen  to  become  an  object  of  pity  from  excess 
of  docihty  ;  very  few  who,  with  ardent  passions,  found  in  Con- 
fession a  veritable  restraint  on  their  indulgence. 

"  Were  Confession  abolished,"  says  the  Roman  Catechism, 
"  not  only  would  the  world  overflow  with  an  infinity  of  secret 
crimes,  but  men  would  cease  to  feel  ashamed  to  commit  them 
openly,  or  to  indulge  in  the  most  shameful  disorders."  Before  the 
Reformation,  this  might  have  been  dreaded  ;  since  the  Reforma- 
tion, the  statement  is  false.  Everywhere,  from  its  earliest  pro- 
gress, we  see  it  harbinger  a  moral  regeneration,  which  its  great- 
est enemies  owned  and  admired.  In  France,  the  preachers  of 
the  sixteenth  century  never  ceased  to  put  Romanists  to  the  blush, 
by  displaying  the  austere  virtue  of  the  Huguenots.  Under  Cal- 
vin, Geneva  became  a  new  Sparta.^     Beza,  the  Roman  Cath- 

^  Unable  to  deny  this,  some  writers  have  shifted  their  ground,  and 


254  HISTORY   OF   THE    COUNCIL   OF    TRENT.  Book  HI. 

olic,  was  a  debauchee ;  Beza,  the  Protestant,  a  Cato.  Henry 
lY.  of  France,  as  a  Protestant,  was  a  debauchee ;  as  a  Roman 
Cathohc,  he  remained  a  debauchee  still.  Pass  the  sea  ;  go  into 
England,  into  Scotland.  Do  you  laugh  at  the  Puritans  ?  They 
have  at  times  been  ridiculous,  but  it  is  easier  to  laugh  at  them 
than  to  shew  wherein  they  were  not,  in  point  of  morals,  the 
gravest  and  most  irreproachable  of  men.  Pass  the  ocean.  The 
Old  World  has  begun  to  people  the  New.  From  Spain,  with 
her  colonists,  there  went  out  troops  of  confessors  ;  from  England, 
the  Bible.  And  now  what  find  you  in  those  regions  ?  The 
Spanish  colonies  became  sinks  of  vice  ;  the  Enghsh  were  the  re- 
production of  Scotland  in  the  seventeenth  century  ;  you  behold 
purity  of  morals,  seriousness  of  maimers,  civilization  resulting 
from  piety ;  you  have  Penn,  you  have  Washington.  Such  has 
been  the  sequel,  instead  of  the  frightful  dissolution  predicted  of 
the  fall  of  Confession. 

Q,uite  assured,  therefore,  as  to  its  pretended  moral  necessity, 
we  need  not  refute  at  any  great  length  what  has  been  said  of  its 
religious  necessity.  "Without  this  salutary  institution,"  says 
Chateaubriand, 1  "the  guilty  would  sink  into  despair.  Into  what 
breast  shall  he  discharge  the  burthen  that  oppresses  his  heart  ? 
Shall  it  be  into  that  of  a  friend  ?  Ah,  who  can  reckon  safely 
on  the  friendship  of  men  ?  Shall  he  fly  to  the  desert  for  a  con- 
fidant ?  The  deserts  ever  resound,  to  the  criminal's  ears,  with 
the  noise  of  those  trumpets  which  the  parricide  Nero  thought 
he  heard  around  his  mother's  tomb."  Fine  phrases,  but  mere 
phrases.  We  detect  a  sophism  at  once  in  his  speaking  of  great 
crimes,  when  we  have  to  do  only  with  sins  of  daily  occurrence. 
Even  on  that  ground,  is  the  author  not  mistaken  ?  Men  with- 
out religion  hardly  know  anything  of  such  despair  ;  and  did  they 
experience  it,  it  is  not  to  the  confessional  they  would  go  in  search 
of  consolation.  Religious  men  might  go,  perhaps  ;  but  who  will 
say  that  they  might  not  lay  hold,  of  themselves,  without  a  con- 
fessor, without  formal  confession,  still  more  without  absolution, 
of  those  promises  of  grace  with  which  the  Gospel  abounds  ? 
Would  such  an  advocate  of  Confession  be  so  good  as  adduce,  we 
shall  not  even  say  a  single  Protestant,  but  a  single  enlightened 

set  themselves  to  declaim  against  Calvin's  despotism.  His  last  biog- 
rapher, Audin,  adduces  as  an  act  of  tyrann}^  the  ordinance  of  1561,  that 
"  No  one  shall  remain  confined  to  bed  for  three  days,  without  letting  the 
pastor  know,  in  order  that  he  may  receive  admonitions  and  consola- 
tions from  him;"  which  the  pope  prescribed  in  1845  to  the  physicians 
throughout  his  states,  that  they  should  cease  to  attend  every  sick  per- 
son who,  on  their  third  visit,  shall  be  found  not  to  have  made  confes- 
sion to  a  priest. 

^  Genie  dtt  Christianisme,  lere  partie. 


ClIAP.  IV.  1551.     IS  ABSOLUTlOxV  ABSOLUTE  OR  CONDITIONAL?  265 

Roman  Ciitholio,  a  Christian,  though  not  avaihug  himself  of 
the  confessional,  who  ever  fell  into  this  alleged  despair  ?  At 
the  very  most,  we  shall  be  told  of  some  who,  from  indolence,  from 
weakness  of  the  moral  sense,  may  have  sighed  lor  the  peace  that 
absohition  gives ;  a  mendacious  peace  which  nothing  but  a  de- 
plorable forgetfulness  of  the  first  notions  of  the  Gospel,  could  lead 
any  one  to  view  as  an  argument  in  favor  of  Confession. 

All  that  we  have  been  considering,  in  fact,  however  eagerly 
it  has  been  sought,  especially  in  our  own  days,  to  make  it  the 
principal,  is  not,  and  cannot  be  more  than  an  accessory.  No 
happy  results  that  the  Romish  Confession  might  have,  can  bar 
our  right  to  say.  Let  us  go  to  the  bottom  of  the  matter,  and  see 
what  it  is.     This  we  proceed  to  do. 

I  have  committed  a  fault.  I  am  about  to  confess.  The  priest 
asks  me  some  questions,  gives  me  some  advices,  imposes  on  me 
a  certain  penance,  and  absolves  me.  I  ask  myself  how  both  he 
and  I  stand  with  regard  to  all  this  ? 

I  absolve  thcc,^  he  has  said.  Is  this  declaration  absolute,  or 
is  it  conditional  ? 

If  absolute,  if  at  the  instant  those  words  passed  from  his 
mouth,  they  were  necessarily  ratified  in  heaven — I  say  to  my- 
self, I  may  have  deceived  him  with  false  semblances  of  repent- 
ance, yet  those  words  have  been  not  the  less  pronounced,  and 
God  must  have  ratified  a  pardon  which  has  been  stolen. 

If  conditional,  if  God  confirms  the  absolution  only  in  the  case 
of  his  seeing  in  me  sentiments  worthy  of  grace — this  is  reasona- 
ble ;  but  what  then  becomes  of  the  authority  of  the  priest  ?  He 
has  not  really  absolved  me  ;  he  has  neither  loosed  nor  bound. 
All  is  but  a  mere  promise,  that  if  I  fulfil  the  necessary  condi- 
tions God  will  absolve  me.  May  not  the  first  that  comes  tell 
me  as  much  ?  May  not  I  myself  say  as  much  to  any  sinner 
who  may  consult  me  on  the  state  of  his  soul  ? 

In  this  last  case,  consequently,  the  priest  is  only  an  ad\aser. 
He  helps  you  in  self-examination  ;  he  gives  you  directions,  which 
may  be  excellent,  on  the  means  of  being  absolved  ;  but  he  does 
not  absolve  you.  You  are  thus  compelled,  if  you  hold  to  leav- 
ing him  anything  to  do  at  all,  to  return  to  the  other  alternative, 
that  is  to  say,  to  leave  him  too  much,  far  too  much,  enormously 
too  much  ;  you  are  compelled  to  admit  that  once  absolved  at  the 
confessional,  the  greatest  villain  stands  also  absolved  before  God. 

And  this  incredible  system,  which  nobody  on  earth,  it  seems, 

^  Here,  perhaps,  may  be  the  proper  place  to  remind  tlie  reader,  that 
until  the  definitive  erection  of  penance  into  a  sacrament,  that  is,  until 
about  the  twelfth  century,  the  priest  did  not  say,  /  absolve  thee  but 
God  absolves  thee.     It  was  no  less  rash,  but  more  humble. 


256  HISTORY   OF  THE   COUNCIL  OF  TRENT.  Book  HI. 

would  dare  to  maintain  in  its  naked  reality,  is  the  only  one, 
nevertheless,  to  Avhich  the  usage  of  Confession  can  lead,  in  prac- 
tice, unless  you  make  a  halt  on  the  way.  Read  the  decree  of 
the  council ;  is  there  any  indication  there  that  the  absolution 
pronounced  by  the  priest,  may  possibly  not  be  ratified  in  heaven  ? 
No.  To  say  that,  in  any  way,  would  be  to  overturn  the  whole 
structure.  The  penitent  is,  no  doubt,  told  beforehand  that  he 
ought  not  to  be  silent  on  any  sin,  and  that  he  is  held  bound  to 
perform  the  penance  imposed  ;  but  here  we  find  precisely  what 
authorizes  him  to  believe  that  after  a  sincere  confession,  and  the 
exact  performance  of  the  penance  imposed,  the  absolution  is  ne- 
cessarily valid.  Take  hold  now  of  that  idea,  analyze  it,  and  see 
to  what  you  are  led.  A  pious  woman  was  asked  one  day,  what 
penalty  the  priest  had  imposed  at  the  confessional  whence  she 
had  just  returned.  Five  Paters  and  five  Ave  Marias,  she  re- 
plied. And  if  you  should  not  say  them  ?  My  sins  will  not  be 
forgiven.  And  if  you  say  them  ill,  without  attention,  with 
weariness  and  disgust  ?  No  more  will  they  be  forgiven  in  that 
case.  Therefore  you  have  not  received  absolution  ?  Certainly  ; 
but  I  must  work  for  it.  The  priest  has  not  then  given  you  any- 
thing ?  He  gave  me  absolution.  Nay,  for  you  still  have  your 
sins  ;  and  you  will  continue  to  have  them  until  your  penance  be 
performed,  and  you  will  keep  them  too  unless  you  perform  it  in 
a  proper  way.  Again  we  ask,  what  has  the  priest  given  you  ? 
Either  a  definitive  absolution  which  you  are  conscious  that  you 
have  not  received,  or  a  mere  promise  of  absolution,  which  any 
other  man  might  have  given  you.  And  the  poor  woman  was 
confounded  at  seeing  no  middle  point  betwixt  this  reducing  of 
the  priest  to  the  level  of  mere  believers,  and  that  exorbitant 
power  with  which  her  conscience  forbade  her  to  believe  him  to 
be  invested.  Hitherto,  however,  it  was  betwixt  these  two  ex- 
tremes that  she  had  found,  or  thought  to  find  repose ;  it  is  also 
in  this  cloudy  middle  that  most  Romanists  find,  or  think  to  find, 
theirs.  Absolution  is  not,  in  their  eyes,  either  a  sovereign  par- 
don, or  a  mere  promise ;  but  let  us  add,  those  who  have  been 
led  to  comprehend  that  it  must  necessarily  be  either  the  one  or 
the  other,  cannot  but  reject  Confession. 

But  unhappily  there  are  many  who  do  not  look  narrowly 
enough  into  the  matter  to  stop  in  their  course,  so  as  to  rest  on 
this  false  middle  ground,  where  there  is  room  at  least  for  a  little 
conscience  and  piety.  They  will  not  go  so  far  as  to  tell  you 
directly,  that  once  absolved  by  the  priest,  it  matters  not  how, 
they  believe  themselves  pure  from  all  sin  ;  but  though  they  say 
it  not,  though,  strictly  speaking,  they  may  not  positively  think 
it,  that  fatal  error  is  not  the  less  the  natural,  the  direct,  and,  it 


Chap.  IV.  1551.       DEPLORADLE    RESl'LTS   INEVITABLE,  267 

must  be  said,  the  perfectly  logical  consequence  of  the  system 
that  has  been  imposed  on  them.  What  is  confession  in  those 
countries  into  which  a  little  true  Christianity,  and  a  little  good 
sense,  liave  not  by  some  means  or  other  penetrated  ?  Did  pa- 
ganism, with  its  impure  priests  and  cheap  expiations,  ever  pre- 
sent anything  so  unheard  of  as  the  brigand  who  goes  from  the 
confessional  to  his  place  of  ambuscade,  tasting  all  the  tranquillity 
of  virtue  between  the  crime  he  has  committed,  and  that  which 
he  meditates  committing  ?  And  why  should  he  not  be  tranquil  ? 
Of  his  past  crimes  he  is  absolved  ;  only  let  him  take  care  not  to 
be  killed  before  he  has  murmured  a  few  prayers  imposed  on  him 
as  penance.  Of  his  future  crimes  he  knows  he  can  be  acquitted 
at  the  same  cost.  He  never  dreams  of  repentance  ;  still  less  of 
amendment  of  life.  Shall  we  be  challenged  to  cite  a  book,  or  a 
priest,  that  has  taught  this  ?  True,  these  are  not  things  that 
are  written  or  said.  But  we,  in  our  turn,  defy  any  one  to  pro- 
duce a  book,  or  a  priest,  able  enough  to  refute  that  brigand  so  as 
to  deprive  him  of  his  frightful  security,  without  a  deep  breach 
on  the  very  doctrine  of  Confession,  the  right  of  absolution,  and 
all  their  consequences.  Everything,  to  the  very  title  of  sacra- 
ment, bestowed  on  penance,  concurs  to  produce  these  deplorable 
results.  "When  the  priest  has  said,  "  I  baptize  thee,"  the  infant 
is  baptized.  When  he  has  said  in  the  mass,  "  This  is  my  body," 
the  wafer  is  changed,  infallibly  changed  into  flesh.  When  he 
has  said,  "  I  absolve  thee,"  how  can  it  be,  if  penance  be  a  sacra- 
ment,  if  these  words  be  pronounced  with  the  same  authority  as 
the  others,  how  can  it  be  that  there  should  not  be  absolution  ? 
To  refute  the*  brigand  who  deems  himself  absolved,  well  and 
duly  absolved,  you  must  begin  by  telling  him  that  absolution, 
in  itself,  signifies  nothing. 

And  what  might  not  one  have  to  say  on  a  thousand  inconven- 
iences in  detail,  on  a  thousand  errors  more  or  less  serious,  all 
of  which,  it  is  true,  Rome  does  not  preach,  and  several  of  which 
she  disowns,  but  in  which  one  might  prove  to  her  that,  alike  in 
fact  and  theory,  there  is  nothing  but  the  consequences  of  her 
doctrine  ;  on  the  mischief  done  to  piety  in  favouring,  by  the  im- 
position of  penalties,  the  idea  that  man  can  pay  his  debts  to 
divine  justice,  while  the  very  contrary  idea  lies  at  the  founda- 
tion of  all  the  teachings  of  Christianity ;  on  the  ridiculous  light- 
ness of  those  penalties,  seeing  that  in  most  cases  they  are  nothing 
more  than  the  repeating  of  a  few  prayers  ;  on  the  risk  of  trans- 
forming prayer  into  a  task,  whereas  it  is  uniibrmly  represented 
to  us  in  Scripture  as  a  privilege  and  a  happiness  ;  on  the  incon- 
venience, in  fine,  of  concentrating  within  this  narrow  and  puerile 
circle  all  the  good  feelings  wherewith  the  sinner  may  or  might 


258  HISTORY   OF   THE    COUNCIL    OF   TRENT.  Book  III. 

be  animated  I  "  I  often  confessed  myself  to  Dr.  Staupitz,"  says 
Luther,  "  not  on  carnal  matters,  but  on  what  makes  the  essence 
of  the  question.  Like  all  other  confessors  he  replied,  I  don't 
understand  you."  Read  the  Compendium,  that  gospel  of  the 
confessors,  and  say  whether  it  is  not  always  the  same.  Speak 
to  them  of  all  sorts  of  abominations,  they  will  confound  you  by 
the  knowledge  they  shew  in  these  foul  matters  ;  speak  to  them, 
like  Luther  to  Staupitz,  who  nevertheless  was  a  fine  character, 
of  your  soul,  of  its  wants,  of  its  thirst  for  life  and  grace,  "  I 
don't  understand  you  "  they  will  say.  If  they  did  understand 
you,  would  they  be  Romanists  ?  And  if  there  be  some  who 
could  understand  you  —  for,  thank  God,  there  are  such  —  ask 
these  last  if  they  seriously  believe  in  the  power  of  opening  and 
shutting  heaven. 

And  if  to  corroborate  all  this,  we  now  require  some  admissions 
of  the  same  kind  with  those  we  should  expect  from  such  priests, 
know  you  where  we  should  look  for  them  ? 

First  of  all,  in  Bossuet  •}  "  It  is  Jesus  Christ,"  says  he,  "  it  is 
that  invisible  pontiff  who  absolves  the  penitent  inwardly,  whilst 
the  priest  exercises  the  outward  ministry."  A.nd  should  this  zVz- 
visible  i^ontiff,  who  reads  what  is  passing  in  the  penitent's  heart, 
see  something  quite  different  there  from  what  the  priest  thinks 
that  he  sees,  will  he  equally  absolve  him  ?  You  would  not  dare 
to  affirm  it.  This  comes  then  to  saying  that  the  penitent  is 
never  sure  of  the  absolution  received,  and  to  believe  in  that  par- 
don he  must  feel  the  dispositions  required  for  obtaining  it.  Thus 
he  will  either  believe  in  it  blindly,  or  he  will  not  really  believe 
in  it  at  all. 

To  whom  shall  we  go  next  ?  To  a  pope  ;  to  Innocent  III.^ 
"  As  the  Church,"  he  says,  "  may  sometimes  err  with  respect  to 
persons,  it  may  happen  that  such  an  one  who  shall  have  been 
loosed  in  the  eyes  of  the  Church,  maybe  bound  before  God,  and 
that  he  whom  the  Church  shall  have  bound,  may  be  loosed  when 
he  shall  appear  before  him  who  knoweth  all  things."  Do  we 
say  more  than  this  ?  And  if  this  be  so,  what  signifies  absolu- 
tion? 

Finally,  on  one  of  the  very  banners  of  Rome — the  banner  that 
Luther  first  seized  and  tore  to  shreds,  we  read  further  the  tacit 
condemnation  of  this  system.  The  formula  of  the  Indulgences 
of  1517  ran  thus  :  "  May  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  fiave  inty  iipo7i 
thee  and  absolve  thee  by  the  merits  of  his  most  holy  passion  ! 
and  I,  in  virtue  of  the  Apostolic  power  that  has  been  confided 
to  me,  absolve  thee  from,  &c."  If  the  first  phrase  signify  any- 
thing, what  means  the   second  ?     If  you  must  begin  by  send- 

^  Exposition  of  the  Catholic  Faith.  -  Epistle  ii. 


Chap.  IV.  1551.  EXTREME   UNCTION— ITS   ORIGIN.  259 

ing  mc  to  Christ,  what  need  have  I  of  you  ?  Who  shall  hinder 
my  goin«^  to  him  myself?  What  is  it  that  you  can  secure  for 
me  ? 

On  the  whole  some  happy  results  may,  in  human  affairs,  make 
us  pass  over  many  inconveniences  ;  but  when  the  things  of  re- 
ligion are  at  stake,  and  where  the  inconveniences  go  at  once  to 
sap  fundamental  principles,  to  approve,  to  tolerate  —  whatever 
honesty  of  intention  there  may  be,  involves  the  application  of 
that  odious  tenet,  that  the  end  justifies  the  means. 

Extreme  unction,  which  was  next  considered,  does  not  present 
the  same  dangers.  It  has,  we  must  own,  all  the  outward  guise 
of  a  sacrament,  and,  which  is  of  moment,  an  Apostle  speaks  of 
it.     What  then  are  we  to  think  of  it  ? 

First,  if  one  Apostle  speaks,  the  rest  do  not ;  and  this  silence, 
which  might  astonish  us  even  had  it  been  no  more  than  a  cere- 
mony in  general  use,  is  incomprehensible  on  the  supposition  of  its 
having  been  a  Christian  sacrament. 

In  the  second  place,  does  St.  James  speak  of  it  as  if  it  were 
a  sacrament  ?  Put  the  theological  question  out  of  view  ;  let  us 
look  to  common  sense,  and  that  the  plainest.  It  is  incidentally, 
in  three  lines,  in  the  midst  of  a  series  of  counsels,*  that  the 
Apostle  speaks  of  anointing  the  sick.  But  for  the  teaching  of 
the  Church,  wdio  could  suppose  that  this  practice  had,  in  the 
mind  of  St.  James,  the  importance  of  a  sacrament,  the  rank  of 
baptism  and  the  supper  ? 

Only  one  Apostle  mentions  it.  Two  words  in  St.  Mark,  how- 
ever, have  been  laid  hold  of,  "  They  anointed  with  oil  many  that 
were  sick."^  Here,  according  to  the  council,  the  sacrament  Avas 
insinuated.  We  have  already  seen  this  forcing  of  a  text  at 
another  place.  Without  dwelling  on  the  strange  idea  of  a  legis- 
lator insinuating,  let  us  remark,  that  the  w'ords  refer  to  sick  per- 
sons and  cures,  not  at  all  to  spiritual  aids  procured  or  figured  by 
anointing.  "  They  anointed  with  oil  many  that  were  sick,  and 
liealcd  them.'"'^  The  healing  of  the  sick  is  in  St.  James  likewise 
the  first  of  the  indicated  results.  After  the  anointing  he  says, 
"  the  prayer  of  faith  shall  save  the  sick,  and  the  Lord  shall  raise 
him  up."  Although  the  Apostle  did  not  certainly  mean  to  say 
that  the  cure  was  certain  provided  the  prayer  was  fervent,  the 
idea  of  healing,  thus  put  in  the  first  line,  is  a  circumstance  not 
to  be  neglected.  The  extreme  unction  of  the  Roman  Church,,  a 
sacrament,  a  ceremony  altogether  spiritual  in  its  meaning  and 
effects,  hence  cannot  be  that  anointing,  partly  curative,  partly 
miraculous,  mentioned  by  St.  Mark  and  St.  James.     This  is  the 

'  James  v.  14,  15.  ~  Mark  vi.  1-3.  ^  See  Marginal  addition. 


260  HISTORY  OF  THE   COUNCIL    OF    TRENT.  Book  HI. 

opinion  of  Cardinal  Cajetan.  "  Neither  the  words,"  says  he, 
"  nor  the  results  announced  here,  indicate  the  sacramental  unc- 
tion of  extreme  unction."^  So  true  is  it  that  the  Roman  Cate- 
chism has  heen  obliged  to  explain  why,  being  the  same,  it  has 
not,  nevertheless,  the  cure  of  the  sick  for  its  result.  "  If  all  sick 
persons  do  not  experience  its  virtue  in  this  respect,  we  must 
think  that  this  arises,  not  from  the  sacrament  having  lost  its 
vigour,  but  from  a  want  of  faith  in  those  who  receive  or  those 
who  administer  it."  Is  it  meant  by  this  that  if  it  were  always 
received  and  administered  with  sufficient  faith,  nobody  would 
any  longer  die  ?  That  would  be  rather  too  strong  an  explana- 
tion. It  may  be  remarked,  too,  that  it  would  be  in  contradiction 
to  what  the  Church  teaches  on  the  power  of  the  priest  being 
independent  of  his  private  dispositions.  Here  we  have  a  sacra- 
ment which  fails  in  one  of  its  effects,  it  is  said,  because  of  the 
want  of  faith  in  those  who  administer  it,  Who,  after  this,  will 
warrant  us  that  the  priest's  want  of  faith  may  not  make  baptism 
fail,  transubstantiation  fail,  absolution  fail,  all  the  sacraments,  in 
fine,  prove  abortive  ? 

Nor  is  this  the  only  difficulty ;  and  what  is  remarkable,  they 
all  spring  from  the  same  text  in  St.  James,  the  only  positive 
passage  that  can  be  adduced  in  favour  of  extreme  unction. 

First,  "  If  any  one  is  sick,"  says  the  Apostle,  "  let  him  call 
^01  the  elders  of  the  Church."  Are  those  elders  the  pastors? 
There  is  nothing  to  prove  this.  "Were  the  pastors  in  St  James's 
time  priests  in  the  Roman  sense  of  the  term  ?  Consequently,  is 
it  to  the  priests  alone  that  this  sacrament  of  divine  right  belongs  ? 
The  council  says  yes  ;  but  beyond  its  own  affirmation  it  neither 
gives  nor  can  give  any  proof  of  this.  The  Presbyteri  of  St. 
James  are,  according  to  the  decree,  priests  duly  ordained  by  the 
bishop — and  anathema  to  all  who  believe  it  not. 

The  Apostle  having  said,  "  Let  them  pray,"  it  has  been 
thought  necessary  to  give  the  form  of  a  prayer  to  the  sacra- 
mental words  that  accompany  the  anointing,  and  hence  a  fresh 
difficulty.  In  all  the  other  sacraments,  in  virtue  of  the  power 
supposed  to  reside  in  him,  the  priest  affirms  and  gives;  in  this 
he  affirms  nothing,  he  gives  nothing.  "  By  this  holy  anointing 
may  God  forgive  thee  all  that  thou  hast  done,  be  it  .  .  .or  be 
it  .  .  .  &c."  The  priest  therefore  exercises  in  reality  no  power. 
He  prays  for  the  sick  man,  and  does  not  warrant  the  success  of 
his .  prayer.  This  is  more  wise  ;  but  if  in  the  sacrament  of 
penance  also  he  were  to  confine  himself  to  saying,  "  May  God 

^  Nee  ex  verbis  nee  ex  effectis,  verba  h£EC  loquantur  de  sacramentah 
unctione  extx'emai  tinctionis. — He  is  in  the  right.  But  if  extreme  unc- 
tion does  not  come  from  this,  where  then  does  he  make  it  come  from? 


CHAP.  IV.  1551.      EXTREME   UNCTION    OF   LITTLE    USE.  261 

forgive  thee,"  would  it  still  be  a  sacrament  ?  In  what  sense, 
then,  can  extreme  unction  be  one  ?  This  certainly  required  ex- 
planation. It  is  an  optative  sacrament,  shall  it  be  said,  and  the 
others  are  coUative.  This  carries  you  far  indeed  I  Nor  is  this 
all.  Before  receiving  it  you  must  have  confessed.  That  same 
priest  who  has  said  to  you  /  absolve  thee,  behold  him  now  pray- 
ing to  God  to  absolve  you.  Of  what  avail  was  his  first  pardon  ? 
In  fine,  as  this  sacrament  is  administered  in  several  anointings, 
at  each  of  which  the  formula  is  repeated,  it  was  only  by  subtle- 
ties that  it  could  be  explained  how  the  sacrament  remains  one, 
how  it  is  not  complete  from  the  first  utterance  of  the  formula, 
how,  in  the  view  of  an  object  so  purely  spiritual,  two  anointings 
should  be  of  more  avail  than  one,  and  three  more  than  two. 
The  same  difficulty  re-appears,  but  much  more  seriously,  in  the 
sacrament  of  Orders,  one  also  according  to  the  council,  although 
administered  in  seven  successive  acts.  All  this  in  itself  is  of  no 
great  importance ;  but  it  is  well  to  shew  how  the  Roman  the- 
ory of  the  sacraments,  so  plain  and  so  one  at  a  first  look,  should 
involve,  even  for  a  Romanist,  so  many  difficulties  and  embar- 
rassments. 

On  the  whole,  then,  although  we  cannot  charge  it  as  a  crime 
against  the  Roman  Church  that  it  has  maintained  extreme  unc- 
tion, viewed  merely  as  a  ceremony  known  to  the  primitive  Church, 
we  are  of  opinion  that  that  ceremony  was  not  originally  either 
recommended  or  interpreted  in  such  a  manner  as  that  Protest- 
ants behoved  to  retain  it,  if  they  saw  inconveniences  arising 
from  it. 

Now,  of  these  there  are  two.  It  is  of  little  use — it  is  often 
dangerous. 

It  is  of  little  use,  for  one  cannot  attribute  to  it  any  effect 
which  shall  not  have  been  already  more  or  less  produced  or 
figured  by  another  sacrament.  What  will  it  add  to  the  graces 
which  the  sick  person  has  already  been  enabled  to  receive  by 
means  of  penance  or  the  communion?  "A  sacrament,"  says 
Chateaubriand,  "  opened  to  this  righteous  person  the  gates  of 
this  world ;  a  sacrament  is  about  to  close  them.  The  liberating 
sacrament  breaks  by  degrees  the  ties  of  the  believer.  Already 
he  seems  to  hear  the  concerts  sung  by  the  seraphim.  Already 
he  is  prepared  to  fly  towards  those  regions  whither  he  is  invited 
by  that  divine  hope  which  is  the  daughter  of  virtue  and  of  death. 
He  dies  at  last,  and  no  one  has  heard  his  last  sigh — so  sweetly 
has  this  Christian  passed  away."  But  how  would  this  Christian, 
"  this  righteous  person,"  so  full  of  resignation  and  hope,  have 
"  passed  away"  with  less  tranquillity  had  he  failed  to  receive  the 
unction,  had  you  repeated  to  him,  not  the  formula  five  times 


262  HISTORY    OF   THE    COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  HI. 

over,  but  one  only  of  those  admirable  exhortations  with  which 
the  Gospel  is  full  ?  Go,  poet,  go  I  the  most  affecting  pictures  in 
the  world  can  never  supply  the  place  of  the  smallest  amount  of 
conclusive  reasoning. 

Extreme  unction  is  often  dangerous,  is  our  second  objection. 
This,  first,  because  people  easily  glide  into  attributing  to  it 
virtues  which  it  has  not  and  never  can  have.  At  so  solemn  a 
moment  as  a  man's  last  dying  struggle,  the  mind  is  hardly  in  a 
state  to  calculate  the  true  bearing  of  an  act,  the  meaning  of 
Avhich  is  so  far  from  clear  even  m  the  decrees  and  the  treatises 
in  which  it  has  been  attempted  to  elucidate  it.  Instead  of  going 
to  the  sense,  people  cleave  to  the  sign.  It  has  been  made  a  sort 
of  charm ;  the  commonalty,  if  they  want  to  know  whether  a 
man  has  died  a  Christian,  ask  no  more  than  whether  he  has 
received  extreme  miction.^  And  what  still  further  tends  to 
foster  such  erroneous  ideas  is,  that  it  is  administered  every  day 
to  sick  persons  who  are  incapable  of  thinking,  seeing,  or  even 
of  feeling.  In  all  cases  of  that  sort,  if  we  do  not  consider  it  as 
useless,  we  are  compelled  to  recognise  in  it  an  action  entirely 
independent  of  the  sentiments  of  the  person  who  receives  it. 
The  body  is  all  but  a  corpse,  and  lo,  a  few  drops  of  oil  poured 
on  members  already  devoted  to  the  worms,  are  nevertheless  to 
influence  the  soul's  eternal  destiny  ! 

In  the  first  century,  among  men  whose  lives  were  but  a  long 
and  laborious  preparation  for  death,  we  can  conceive  that  this 
error  was  less  to  be  dreaded  ;  but  since  extreme  unction  was 
neither  instituted  by  Jesus  Christ,  nor  recommended  after  his 
departure  as  a  sacrament  behoved  to  have  been — it  might  and 
ought  to  have  disappeared  among  those  who  have  seen  more 
dangers  than  good  results  attending  it. 

"While  one  of  the  congregations  was  employed  in  elaborating 
the  dogmatical  decrees,  the  other  had  resumed  in  detail  some 
points  relative  to  episcopal  jurisdiction. 

Each  new  point  gave  rise  to  new  complaints,  most  of  which 
were  so  evidently  legitimate,  that  there  was  no  means  of  escape 
from  making  some  concessions.  Thus  some  bishops  having  com- 
plained that  a  priest  suspended  or  interdicted,  even  for  immoral 
conduct  or  notorious  scandal,  could  procure  his  rehabilitation  by 
the  pope,  the  legate  allowed  it  to  be  decided  that  such  rehabili- 
tations should  not  take  place  ;  exacting  only  that  the  pope  should 

^  It  is  with  the  view  of  avoiding  this  evil  (ecueil)  that  some  Protest- 
ant Churches  interdict  themselves  from  giving  the  supper  itself  to  the 
dying.  The  precaution  is  perhaps  exaggerated,  but  it  springs  from  a 
principle  which  cannot  be  too  much  borne  in  mind. 


Chap.  IV.  1551.     CONCESSIONS  AS  TO  EIMSCOI'AL  JURISDICTION.      2G3 

not  be  named  in  the  decree.  Siupi  will  have  it  that  this  was 
only  that  lie  might  remain  free  from  its  ohhgation  ;  but  as  that 
kind  of  dispensations  emanated  entirely  from  him,  this  omission 
of  his  name  could  not  have  that  ellect.  All  that  was  wished, 
then,  was  to  avoid  addressing  him  too  directly,  on  what  was  felt 
to  be  a  serious  reproach.  The  same  precaution  was  taken  in 
another  decree,  relative  to  what  were  called  conservatory  ex- 
penses. A  man  accused  before  the  bishop  might  purchase  at 
Rome  permission  to  choose  a  judge,  and  that  judge  in  most  cases 
never  acted,  but  confined  himself  to  sheltering  the  accused  from 
the  episcopal  jurisdiction.  The  thing  w^as  prohibited  ;  but  uni- 
versities, colleges,  hospitals,  and  convents  were  excepted  from 
the  prohibition,  and  this  considerably  reduced  the  application  of 
it.  It  is  true  that  the  council  had  hardly  the  power  of  touching 
the  ancient  privileges  of  those  corporations — the  popes  them- 
selves durst  not,  and  those  privileges,  besides,  w^ere  often  the  safe- 
guards of  necessary  liberties.  Everywhere  the  evil  was  found 
bound  up  with  what  had  in  the  first  instance  been  a  good,  and 
the  council  w^as  incessantly  in  the  position  of  an  operator  who  is 
stopped  at  every  incision  he  makes,  by  the  cries  of  the  patient  or 
the  dread  of  wounding  a  healthy  part. 

They  had  the  courage,  nevertheless,  to  take  up  anew  two  de- 
crees of  the  sixth  and  the  seventh  sessions,  for  the  purpose  of 
giving  precision  to  their  meaning,  and  making  their  regulations 
more  severe.  In  this  last  we  have  seen  what  the  council  had 
done  in  the  way  of  restraining,  as  much  as  in  it  lay — unions  of 
benefices ;  it  was  added  that  the  union  could  not  take  place,  in 
any  instance,  where  the  benefices  lay  in  different  dioceses.  In 
the  sixth,  bishops  had  been  prohibited  from  ordaining  priests  in 
any  diocese  but  their  own  ;  but  ambulatory ^  bishops  w^ere  free  to 
establish  themselves  in  monasteries,  and  there,  in  spite  of  the 
diocesan,  they  ordained  whom  they  chose,  that  is  to  say,  in  most 
cases,  all  that  were  least  worthy  of  the  priesthood.-  The  pope 
levied  a  tribute  on  these  ordinations.  They  were  forbidden,  but 
the  facility  with  which  Rome  had  tolerated,  while  regulating 
for  her  own  advantage,  such  a  violation  of  quite  a  recent  decree, 
sufficiently  shewed  how  little  good  faith  was  to  be  expected  from 
her  in  the  execution  of  all  that  did  not  suit  her  views  "  As  for 
the  disciplinary  decrees  published  in  this  session,"  wrote  the 
bishop  of  Astorga  to  Cardinal  Granville,  the  emperor's  minister, 
*'  they  are  not  of  a  nature  to  cause  scandals  to  cease.  "VMiat  we 
do  here  is  not  what  we  wish  to  do,  but  what  we  are  allowed  to 

^  Fere  vagal)undi.     Second  canon. 

'  Minus  idonei,  et  rudes,  ac  ignavi,  et  qui  a  sue  episcopo  tauquani 
inhabiles  et  indigni  rejecti  fuerant.     Second  canon. 


264  HISTORY    OF   THE    COUNCIL    OF   TRENT.  Book  HI. 

do."  "  A  pretty  reformation,  forsooth,"  exclaimed  the  Bishop  of 
Verdun  one  day ;  on  which  the  legate  told  him  he  was  an  im- 
pertinent fellow,  a  blockhead,  a  raiv  youth.  "  For  my  part," 
wrote  Vargas,  "of  all  these  reforming  decrees,  I  have  but  one 
word  to  say — they  are  useless ;  they  are  unfortunate  for  us  ;  but 
the  court  of  Rome  will  well  know  how  to  turn  them  to  good  ac- 
count." In  fact,  it  was  already  said  all  over  Europe,  that  the 
only  result  of  the  efforts  of  the  assembly  to  make  dispensations 
more  rare,  had  been  to  cause  a  rise  in  the  price  of  them.  And 
this  was  true.  The  papal  chancery  openly  rested  on  the  coun- 
cil's prohibitions  as  a  ground  for  enhancing  the  payment  of  the 
violations  it  authorized. 

The  session  (the  fourteenth)  was  held  on  the  25th  November, 
1551.  Nothing  of  importance  was  done.  The  dogmatical  de- 
crees (penance  and  extreme  unction)  were  voted  at  once ;  the 
disciplinary  regulations  gave  occasion  for  repeating  that  they 
were  accepted  only  as  an  instalment,  and  that  much  yet  remained 
to  be  done.  It  became  known  next  day  that  the  legate  had  for- 
bidden the  printing  of  the  acts  of  this  session ;  but,  as  might 
have  been  foreseen,  copies  were  taken  and  sent  away  in  all  di- 
rections, and  these  were  printed,  read,  and  criticised  with  more 
eagerness  than  ever. 


OHAPTEE   V. 

(1552.) 

SESSIONS   XV   AND   XVI.        PROTESTANT    DEMANDS.        PAPAL    FEARS. 

SUSPENSION  OF  THE  COUNCIL. 

The  affair  of  the  safe-conduct  taken  up  again — Reception  of  the  Prot- 
estant ambassadors  —  Fifteexth  Session  —  Prorogation — The  situa- 
tion again  becomes  menacing — Fears  and  precautions  of  the  pope — 
Am-ival  of  some  Protestant  doctors — All  ceases  and  dies — War  bursts 
out  in  Germany — The  emperor  takes  to  flight — Suspension  for  two 
years — Involuntary  Gallicanism — Peace  of  Passau  and  abolition  of 
the  Interim — The  council  no  more  talked  of — Rome  thinks  she  has 
got  rid  of  it. 

A  FEW  days  before  the  sitting,  the  Duke  of  Wurtemberg's 
envoys  had  arrived  at  Trent.  According  to  custom,  every  am- 
bassador, before  having  an  official  audience,  communicated  his 
instructions  to  the  president  of  the  council.  Those  of  the  Elect- 
or of  Brandenburg  had  yielded  on  this  point,  but  the  duke's  had 
come  v\^ith  orders  to  accept  neither  de  jure  nor  cle  facto  the  pre- 
sidency of  the  pope  or  of  his  representatives.  It  was  Cardinal 
Madrucci,  bishop  of  Trent,  who  acted  as  intermediate  between 
them  and  the  assembly.  They  first  resumed  the  subject  of  the 
free-conduct.  A  more  explicit  one  had  to  be  given,  or  their 
divines  would  not  come.  Now,  nothing  could  have  been  more 
agreeable  to  the  legate,  and  almost  the  totality  of  the  council, 
than  to  find  those  hindrances  thus  raised  in  a  question  of  form, 
which  they  durst  no  more  raise  on  the  ground  of  principle.  The 
legate  and  the  nuncios  replied,  accordingly,  that  it  did  not  be- 
come the  dignity  of  the  council  to  grant  a  safe-conduct  anew ; 
that  this  would  be  to  admit  the  insufficiency  of  that  first  issued, 
and  the  bad  faith  they  were  accused  of  having  shewn  in  it. 
The  same  difficulties  occurred  on  the  arrival  of  the  deputies 
from  Strasbourg  and  other  Protestant  cities,  which,  as  Avell  as 
the  princes,  had  been  compelled  by  the  emperor  to  have  them- 
selves represented  at  the  council ;  and  when  they  joined  in  a 
demand  that  in  conformity  with  the  promises  of  Charles  V., 
they  should  be  allow^ed  at  least  to  present  to  the  council  an  ex- 
position of  their  faith,  the  legate  declared  that  neither  he  nor  his 

M 


266  HISTORY    OF   THE   COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Bock  III. 

colleagues,  neither  the  assembly  nor  the  pope,  could  ever  consent 
to  such  a  thing. 

Finally,  there  arrived  the  envoys  from  the  Elector  of  Saxony, 
and  as  their  master,  daily  more  and  more  powerful,  shewed 
himself  little  disposed  to  suffer  their  not  being  received,  some 
means  had  to  be  fallen  upon  for  doing  so.  It  was  decided  that 
the  Protestant  ambassadors  should  all  be  received  on  the  same 
day,  but  not,  however,  at  a  public  sitting.  It  was  to  be,  there- 
fore, at  a  general  congregation,  and  in  the  legate's  palace. 

At  this  very  sitting  other  questions  had  to  be  resolved.  What 
place  should  be  given  to  the  ambassadors  ?  As  heretics  they 
should  get  to  their  knees,  or  at  best  remain  standing  and  uncov- 
ered, an  indignity  which  could  not  be  asked  of  them,  and  still 
less  imposed  upon  them.  It  was  decided,  therefore,  that  they 
should  have  seats,  and  even  honourable  ones  ;  but,  "  from  char- 
ity and  compassion,"  say  the  minutes,  and  without  any  deroga- 
tion from  the  rights  of  the  assembly.  The  conferences  had 
lasted  two  months. 

That  sitting  was  held  at  last  on  the  24th  of  January.  Leon- 
ard Badehorn,  the  Saxon  ambassador,  saluted  the  bishops  by  the 
title  of  Most  Revere7id  Fathers  and  Lords.  His  speech  was 
calm,  his  demands  exorbitant ;  but  it  was  plain  that  had  they 
been  less  moderate  they  would  have  been  insincere,  and  he 
ought  rather  to  have  been  commended  for  having  prevented 
beforehand  all  equivocation.  He  insisted,  before  all,  that  the 
pope  should  be  declared  inferior  to  the  council ;  in  the  second 
place,  that  all  the  decrees  should  be  reviewed,  and  that  they 
should  wait  for  the  Protestant  divines  before  setting  to  work  ;  in 
fine,  that  these  should  have  a  deliberative  voice,  and  that  they 
should  begin  by  drawing  up  the  safe-conduct  in  such  a  way  as 
to  free  them  from  all  apprehension.  He  was  patiently  listened 
to,  and  the  reply  was  that  the  assembly  would  take  his  speech 
into  deliberation. 

One  of  those  points  had  been  settled  beforehand  :  this  M^as  that 
the  deliberations  should  be  suspended  until  the  arrival  of  the 
Protestant  divines.  The  following  day,  accordingly,  the  25th  of 
January,  1552,  a  session  (the  fifteenth)  was  held,  but  only  to  de- 
clare that  the  council  would  wait  for  them  until  the  19th  of 
March.  It  had  been  agreed  also  that  a  second  safe-conduct 
should  be  given,  and  it  was  read  at  that  same  sitthig.  Although 
conceived  in  the  most  precise  terms,  the  compulsory  omission  of. 
the  name  of  the  pope,  whom  the  council  could  in  no  way  what- 
soever make  a  party  to  it,  prevented  its  signifying  anything 
more  than  the  preceding  one.  The  ambassadors  at  first  refused 
it ;  then,  at  the  instance  of  the  Count  de  Montfort,  premier  am- 


Chap.  V.  1552.      CREATION   OF   FOURTEEN   CARDINALS.  2C7 

bassador  of  Charles  V.,  they  consented  to  send  it  to  their  ma-s- 
ters. 

The  decree  of  prorogation  bore  that  the  council  had  discussed 
the  articles  bearing  on  the  mass  and  the  sacrament  of  Orders,  as 
well  as  the  points  previously  adjourned  ;  that  they  were  about 
to  proceed  to  treat  of  the  sacrament  of  marriage,  and  that  the 
whole  would  be  published  together  at  the  next  session.  Several 
of  these  details  were  far  from  exact.  The  decree  seems  to  say  that 
the  mass  and  orders  were  ready,  and  this  was  far  from  being  the 
case.  There  had  as  yet  been  only  a  few  preparatory  discussions  ; 
orders,  in  particular,  had  hardly  been  touched  upon.  The  coun- 
cil wished  to  shew  that  their  discussions  were  not  stopped  by  other 
discussions  elsewhere  ;  forgetting  that  Europe  had  known,  from 
day  to  day,  how  the  business  stood.  It  was  probably,  too,  for  the 
purpose  of  veiling  these  blanks,  that  the  session  was  celebrated 
with  more  than  ordinary  pomp.  With  the  crowd  of  ambassadors 
present,  this,  it  is  true,  seemed  natural.  They  might  have 
thought  they  were  attending  a  new  birth  of  the  council,  whereas 
it  was  its  funeral. 

In  fact,  it  Avas  about  to  come  to  an  end. 

The  legate  and  the  Italians  began  to  perceive  a  disquieting 
intimacy  between  the  Protestant  ambassadors  and  those  of  the 
emperor,  an  intimacy  shared,  to  a  certain  point,  by  several  of 
the  German  prelates.  As  much  divided  as  ever  upon  dogmat- 
ical questions,  they  had  only  to  come  upon  the  chapter  of  the 
pope  and  the  court  of  Rome,  to  find  themselves  almost  at  one. 
The  Protestants  were  delighted  to  hear  Roman  Catholics  admit 
the  scandals  of  an  organization  to  which  they  attributed  all  the 
woes  of  the  Church  and  Europe  ;  the  imperialists,  on  their  side, 
seemed  to  feel  no  repugnance  at  having  them  for  auxiliaries  in 
the  abasement  of  the  pope.  The  latter,  at  the  Christmas  hol- 
idays, had  created  fourteen  cardinals,  all  Italians,  at  a  stroke, 
betraying  sufficiently  his  fears  by  such  eagerness  to  reinforce  his 
party.  At  the  same  time  he  turned  his  regards  to  Henry  II.  of 
France.  His  secret  negotiators  represented  him  to  that  prince 
as  ready  to  break  with  the  emperor,  and  even,  in  the  event  of 
war,  to  declare  for  France.  In  fine,  he  wearied  for  nothing  so 
much  as  to  see  taken  away  from  both  the  most  dangerous  instru- 
ment they  could  bring  into  play  against  him — the  council.  He 
sent  orders,  accordingly,  to  the  legate  so  to  arrange  matters  that 
all  might  be  brought  to  a  close  in  two  sessions,  or  at  most,  three  ; 
but  as  the  council  had  promised  to  wait  for  the  Protestants,  they 
had  either  to  do  nothiii£r,  or  next  to  nothing.  Although  it  had 
been  decreed  that  there  should  be  no  interruption  of  the  discus- 


268  HISTORY  OF   THE    COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  III. 

sions,  it  was  felt  that  they  could  not  well  do  anything  until  they 
had  waited  for  them  for  a  certain  time. 

It  would  appear,  moreover,  that  the  hope  had  always  been 
cherished  that  they  would  not  come,  for,  we  find  that,  on  their 
arrival,  everything  was  changed.  And  yet  they  were  but  six 
doctors,  two  from  Strasbourg,  and  two  from  Wurtemberg.  In- 
stead of  a  new  life,  there  now  followed  death.  Legate,  nuncios, 
and  bishops,  would  no  longer  do  anything  ;  those  whose  ardour 
it  had  been  found  most  difficult  to  restrain  when  it  was  proposed 
to  close  at  the  end  of  some  weeks,  were  the  very  persons  that 
now  shewed  most  reluctance  to  do  anything.  The  horizon,  it  is 
true,  had  again  begun  to  lower.  A  general  league  of  the  Prot- 
estants against  the  emperor  was  spoken  of;  the  Electors  of  Co- 
logne and  Mayence  had  left  Trent  to  be  ready  for  any  emergency. 
On  the  19th  of  March,  instead  of  a  session,  a  congregation  only 
was  held,  and  an  adjournment  made  to  the  1st  of  May.  At 
this  sitting  the  Protestants  were  neither  heard  nor  admitted,  and, 
several  days  afterwards,  nothing  was  yet  said  either  about  admit- 
ting them  or  resuming  business.  No  one  could  foresee  how  mat- 
ters were  to  end.  The  legate  was  intently  occupied  about  this. 
He  was  not  long  of  furnishing  in  his  own  person  a  pretext  for 
new  delays.  Devoured  with  anxiety,  worn  out  with  watching 
and  with  the  impetuosity  of  his  character,  he  suddenly  lost  his 
reason.  A  black  dog,  he  said,  was  always  pursuing  him,  and 
staring:  at  him  with  flaminsf  eyes.  The  Protestants  wanted  one 
of  the  nuncios  to  take  his  place,  but  the  pope  was  referred  to. 
His  reply  was  waited  for,  but  never  came. 

All  at  once  news  arrived  that  a  Protestant  army  was  besieg- 
ing Augsburg.  The  Elector  of  Saxony  had  declared  himself 
against  the  emperor,  and  having  given  the  signal,  had  found  all 
the  Protestant  princes  ready  to  march  under  his  banner.  After 
having  spent  the  winter  in  ably  preparing  his  alliances  and  his 
forces,  he  had  issued  his  manifesto.  As  a  Protestant  he  declared 
that  he  had  no  account  to  render  either  to  the  emperor  or  to  the 
council ;  as  a  prince  he  called  upon  all  the  princes  of  the  em- 
pire, Roman  Catholic  and  Protestant,  to  throw  otY  the  yoke  of 
Charles  V.,  and  this  new  course  he  briskly  began  by  besieging 
Augsburg,  the  city  of  the  diets.  In  three  days  the  city  was  his. 
Straightway  he  flies  to  Inspruck.  There  he  enters  by  one  gate 
a  few  hours  after  Charles  V.  had  gone  out  by  another,  and  he 
who  a  few  days  before  might  have  thought  himself  master  of 
Europe,  flies,  almost  alone,  into  the  heart  of  Carinthia. 

At  the  first  noise  of  this  eruption  a  great  many  of  the  bishops 
fled  to  Verona,  and  the  nuncios  asked  the  pope  for  authority  to 
suspend  the  council.     Julius  did  not  wait  to  be  asked.     He  had 


Chap.  V.  1552.     COUNCIL  SUSPENDED  FOR  TWO  YEARS.  2C() 

made  a  treaty  with  Hcury  II.  ;  he  felt  himself  no  lonrfcr  bound 
to  any  forbearance  toward.s  the  emperor.  He  gave  orders,  how- 
ever, lor  the  suspension  to  be  voted,  and  a  large  majority  having 
given  their  voices  in  favour  of  that  measure,  a  session  was  held  on 
the  28th  of  April,  at  which  the  council  was  declared  suspended 
for  two  years,  and  longer  if  necessary.  It  was  added,  that  in  the 
meantime  all  the  decrees  already  made  should  he  religiously  ob- 
served ;  but  this  article,  inserted  probably  without  reflection,  for 
the  lunicios  could  have  no  thought  of  offending  the  pope,  was 
looked  upon  with  a  very  evil  eye  at  Rome.  The  last  decrees  had 
not  yet  received  the  papal  sanction  ;  to  ordain  their  observance 
was  to  say  that  they  did  not  require  that  sanction.  And  what 
put  the  omission  in  still  stronger  relief,  was  that  the  pope's  inter- 
vention, forgotten  at  this  place,  was  mentioned  further  up,  in 
the  article  on  the  future  resumption  of  the  council.  It  seemed, 
accordingly,  to  be  thought  necessar}''  to  the  legitimacy  of  the 
council,  but  superfluous  as  respected  the  validity  of  its  decrees. 
Here  there  was  Gallicanism  without  its  being  intended. 

Maurice  had  known  how  to  conquer  ;  but  he  was  either  una- 
ble or  unwilling  to  draw  from  his  victory  all  the  advantages  it 
seemed  to  offer  him.  Perhaps  he  felt  reluctant  to  reduce  to  ex- 
tremity the  man  to  whom  he  had  owed  his  greatness  ;  besides, 
if  all  the  acts  of  imperial  injustice  were  to  be  remedied,  he  be- 
hoved to  begin  by  giving  back  the  electorship  to  the  man  who 
had  been  despoiled  of  it  five  years  before,  This  proved  the 
salvation  of  Charles  V.  The  greater  he  had  been  seen  to  be, 
the  more  stupefaction  had  his  fall  produced.  Abandoned  by 
several  of  his  allies,  feebly  defended  by  his  few  remaining  friends, 
and  particularly  by  his  brother  and  his  nephew,  confounded  him- 
self by  so  sudden  a  catastrophe,  he  did  not  hesitate  to  humble 
himself  before  his  own  vassal.  He  sued  for  peace,  and  within 
four  months  from  the  commencement  of  hostilities  it  was  con- 
cluded. ^  Liberty  of  conscience  was  restored  to  Germany,  and 
the  Interim,  which  had  served  only  to  put  eveiybody  in  a  false 
position,  was  abolished.  This  liberty  of  conscience  did  not,  how- 
ever, imply  that  the  emperor  was  obliged  to  tolerate  Protestant- 
ism in  his  own  states  ;  all  that  he  was  bound  to  was  to  leave  the 
princes  free  to  act  in  this  matter,  each  for  himself,  as  he  might 
think  fit. 

After  having  had  the  suspension  of  the  council  decreed,  the 
pope  had  at  first  thought  of  making  some  compensation  to  those 
who  had  felt  aggrieved  by  that  step.  He  had,  accordingly,  nom- 
inated a  commission,  charged  with  the  task  of  submitting  to  him 
those  projects  of  internal  reform  with  which  the  council  had  not 

^  Peace  of  Passau,  August,  1552. 


270  HISTORY  OF  THE   COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  HI. 

found  time  to  occupy  itself.  The  news  of  this  was  coldly  received. 
People  did  not  doubt  that  the  reforms  decreed  by  the  pope  would 
be  better  executed  than  those  of  the  council,  and  in  this  respect 
nothing  was  lost ;  but  it  was  doubted  whether  any  would  be  de- 
creed at  all,  and  it  was  thought  time  enough  to  be  glad  when 
they  really  appeared.  Had  he  not,  at  the  beginning  oi"  his  reign, 
named  a  commission  also — what  had  been  the  result  ?  He 
seemed,  however,  on  this  occasion,  to  attach  much  interest  to  it. 
He  composed  it  of  the  most  eminent  personages  ;  he  saw  also  to 
its  being  numerous.  This  was,  he  would  say,  that  it  might  have 
the  utmost  possible  authority,  and  keep  people  from  regretting 
the  absence  of  the  council ;  but  the  grumblers  said  it  was  in 
order  that  it  might  not  proceed  so  quickly  to  work.  Whether 
that  was  the  pope's  intention  or  not,  the  event  justified  them. 
The  commission  met  some  five  or  six  times,  completed  nothing 
that  it  had  begun,  and  was  soon  no  more  spoken  of. 

Nor  was  the  council  any  more  spoken  of  either ;  never  for 
nearly  forty  years  had  princes  or  their  subjects  seemed  to  make 
less  account  of  it.  Now  that  the  Interim  was  abolished,  not  only 
had  the  emperor  no  need  of  a  council,  but  he  could  no  longer  de- 
sire to  see  the  publication  of  decrees  that  his  vassals  would  repel 
with  impunity  before  his  very  eyes.  The  Protestants  had  lost 
all  desire  of  appealing  to  a  council ;  the  Roman  Catholics,  even 
on  their  own  account,  were  much  more  afraid  of  the  contentions 
that  preceded  the  decrees  than  gratified  at  the  prospect,  then  so 
doubtful,  of  the  unity  and  the  authority  that  were  afterwards  to 
result  from  them.  And  Rome,  Rome  which  for  forty  years  had 
never  ceased  to  tremble  alike  at  the  wishes  of  the  former  and 
the  recriminations  of  the  latter,  Rome  could  believe  that  she  had 
gained  her  suit  both  against  her  enemies  and  against  her  friends. 

She  was  mistaken.     We  are  but  at  the  middle  of  our  task. 


BOOK  IV. 

FROM  THE  SUSPENSIOX  IN  1552  TO  THE  END  OF  THE 
TWENTY-SECOND  SESSION  IN  1562. 


CHAPTER    I. 

(1555-1561.) 

COUNCIL     SUSPENDED.      'POPES     MARCELLUS    II.,     PAUL    IV.,     AND 
PIUS  IV.       POLITICAL    COMPLICATIONS. 

Ten  years'  interruption — Death  of  Julius  III. — ^Election  of  Marcellus  II. 
— ^He  reigns  only  one-and-twenty  days — Election  of  Paul  IV. — Ilis 
character — His  incoherent  projects — Manoeuvres — The  States  of  the 
Church  invaded — A^iolent  acts  of  the  pope — His  deliverance — What 
he  meant  to  make  of  the  council — His  pretensions  with  respect  to 
kings  and  kingdoms — Ferdinand  resumes  the  offensive — ^The  Refor- 
mation spreads  in  all  directions — The  Inquisition — Servetus  and  Ro- 
man Catholic  historians — Pius  IV. — New  tactics — Delays  on  the  part 
of  Rome  and  impatience  of  France — Attempts  to  create  a  diversion — 
Geneva  and  its  history — David  before  Goliath — The  charity  of  St. 
Francis  de  Sales — SJioivs  and  appearance!^,  infinite  protraction  of  biisi- 
ness  and  disguising  of  real  intentions — Plan  of  a  European  confedera- 
tion against  the  Protestants — The  project  miscarries — Anew  council 
is  desired,  and  not  the  continuation  of  the  old — It  is  proposed  that 
one  should  be  held  in  France — The  pope  is  compelled  to  hasten  mat- 
ters— ^Third  convocation  of  the  council — Difficulties  eluded — Of  the 
unity  of  the  Council  of  Trent — The  bull  satisfies  no  one — The  six 
legates — Meeting  of  the  States  at  Orleans — Bold  demands — Catherine 
de  Medicis  and  the  Reformation. 

Ten  years  were  destined  to  elapse  before  the  third  and  last 
convocation  of  the  council ;  and  all  that  we  shall  have  to  notice 
in  the  course  of  that  period,  will  be  comprised  in  the  events 
which,  in  our  apprehension,  led  from  the  council  of  Julius  III. 
to  that  of  Pius  IV. 

It  is  not  until  the  diet  of  Augsburg  in  1555,  three  years  after 
the  suspension  of  the  council's  sittings,  that  we  come  again  upon 
any  serious  traces  of  what  had  long  been,  as  it  were,  the  fixed 
idea  of  Europe.  Little  regard  was  paid  to  it.  Ferdinand,  who, 
as  king  of  the  Romans,  presided  in  the  Emperor's  name,  and 
knew  how  little  inclination  his  brother  at  this  time  felt  for  it. 


272  HISTORY   OF  THE   COUNCIL  OF  TRENT.  Book  IV. 

plainly  said  that  it  was  not  to  be  dreamt  of ;  that  there  was  no 
room  to  expect  its  proving  more  auspicious  than  before  ;  that  if 
people  would  have  something  really  done,  they  should  endeav- 
our, as  a  last  resource,  to  bring  about  a  conference  betwixt  the 
doctors  of  the  two  parties. 

This  idea  was  neither  a  new  nor  a  happy  one  ;  accordingly,  it 
was  ill  received  in  Germany,  and  still  worse  in  Italy.  Cardinal 
Morone  was  instantly  despatched  from  Rome,  with  orders  to  op- 
pose any  such  course  to  the  utmost ;  and  he  was  to  do  his  best, 
also,  to  press  on  the  Protestants  of  Germany  the  example  of 
England,  which  had  returned  to  the  unity  of  the  Roman  Cath- 
olic Church. 

This  apparent  submission  of  England,  the  joint  result  of  the 
pope's  skilful  management,  and  of  Q.ueen  Mary's  rigorous  pro- 
ceedings, had  been  ielt  by  Julius  to  be  a  grateful  compensation 
for  many  painful  disappointments,  but  he  was  doomed  to  a  short 
enjoyment  of  it.  Scarcely  had  Morone  reached  Augsburg,  when 
he  had  to  leave  it  again,  in  order  to  take  part  in  a  new  election 
of  a  pope.     Julius  had  died.     (23d  March,  1555.) 

The  conclave  did  not  sit  long ;  mdeed,  it  rose  so  soon,  that 
Cardinal  Morone  and  the  Cardinal  of  Augsburg,  although  they 
had  made  all  haste,  found  the  election  over.  This  was  not  the 
first  time  that  complaints  were  made  of  the  law  which  fixes  the 
opening  of  the  conclave  for  business  for  the  tenth  day  following 
the  pope's  decease.  On  most  occasions  that  term  is  deferred, 
but  there  being  no  obligation  to  that  effect,  the  election  is  al- 
together in  the  hands  of  the  cardinals  that  happen  to  be  then 
at  E-ome.  ^ 

This  time  they  made  a  happy  choice.  Marcellus  Cervini, 
Cardinal  of  Santa  Croce,  whom  we  saw  appear  as  legate  at  the 
first  opening  of  the  council,  was  a  man  of  serious  character  and 
pure  morals,  no  bigot,  profoundly  devoted  to  the  papal  cause,  but 
at  the  same  time  sincerely  desirous  of  all  such  internal  reforms 
as  should  not  compromise  that  cause.  In  this  tribute  to  his 
worth,  we  rest,  we  confess,  rather  on  the  intentions  he  mani- 
fested as  pope,  than  on  what  little  we  know  of  his  previous  opin- 
ions ;  and  although  he  showed  in  the  council  that  he  was  sensi- 
bly less  of  a  papist  than  his  colleague.  Cardinal  del  Monte,  who 
died  pope,  we  cannot  suppress  our  conviction  that  had  he  given 
any  previous  hint  of  what  his  projects  were  to  be,  he  never 
would  have  ascended  the  papal  throne.  Much  was  thought  to 
be  already  implied  in  his  retaining  his  baptismal  name  Marcel- 
lus, contrary  to  a  practice  which  the  popes  had  followed  for 
ages,  of  changing  theirs  as  soon  as  they  put  the  tiara  upon  their 
head.     Adrian  VI.,  thirty-three  years  before,  had  also  retained 


Chap.  I.  1555.       ELECTION   AND   DEATH   OF   MARCELLUS   II.  273 

his,  but  only  at  the  sugf^cstioii  of  his  pupil,  Charles  V.,  who  had 
observed  to  him  that  all  the  Adrians  had  been  good  popes. 
Now,  it  was  at  his  own  instance  that  Marcellus  Cervini  re- 
mained Marcellus ;  and  this  i'act,  though  it  might  not  have  all 
the  importance  some  attached  to  it,  proved  at  least  that  he  was 
a  man  who  was  himself  ready  to  shake  off,  and  who  could  allow 
others  to  shake  off,  whatever  might  appear  to  him  non-essen- 
tial. Besides,  as  Luther  had  written  some  very  severe  and  well- 
known  comments  on  those  changes  of  name,  ^  it  was  quite  possi- 
ble that  people  might  ask  if  there  was  not  here  a  triumph  yielded 
to  the  Reformer,  and  if  this  first  concession  might  not  harbinger 
others  that  were  to  follow.  Be  this  as  it  may,  hardly  was  Mar- 
cellus elected,  when  he  openly  announced  it  as  his  intention  to 
continue  the  council.  Notwithstanding:  his  having  had  so  near 
a  view  of  the  perils  threatened  by  such  meetings  to  the  Holy 
See,  he  knew,  he  said,  an  easy  method  of  ridding  them  of  all 
that  was  formidable  ;  this  was  that  the  Holy  See  should  leave 
them  nothing  to  criticise  in  the  Church's  administration  and  dis- 
cipline. Never  was  there  a  greater  mistake,  inasmuch  as  a  coun- 
cil with  no  abuses  in  discipline  to  occupy  its  attention,  would 
run  a  greater  risk  than  any  other,  of  touching  on  points  that,  for 
very  different  reasons,  could  ill  bear  handling.  But  it  was  the 
mistake  of  a  man  who  meant  well.  It  is  painful  to  have  to 
add,  for  Pallavicini's  denials  are  not  sufficient  in  our  opinion  to 
weaken  what  has  been  related  by  Sarpi  and  De  Thou,  that  he 
gave  no  little  thought  to  astrology,  and  consulted  the  planets 
fully  as  much  as  the  Scriptures.  This  weakness,  however,  was 
even  then  more  general  than  one  would  believe.  Paul  HI., 
with  all  his  genius,  had  not  been  exempt  from  it.  "  Never," 
says  Ranke,  "  would  he  open  any  important  meeting  of  the  Sa- 
cred College  ;  never  would  he  set  out  on  a  journey,  without  con- 
sulting the  constellations.  An  alliance  with  France  met  with 
several  delays,  because  he  had  not  found  a  conformity  between 
the  birth  of  the  king  and  his  own."  This  is  ridiculous ;  what 
follows  is  odious.  While  sorcery  had  thus  its  adepts,  even  on 
the  pontifical  throne,  obscure  sorcerers  were  not  the  less  perse- 
cuted and  burnt. 

Elected  on  the  9th  of  April,  Marcellus  died  on  the  30th,  and 
all  his  projects  ended  with  his  life.  The  short  lifetime  of  the 
popes  is  not  one  of  the  least  defects  of  the  Roman  constitution. 
Bad  popes  have  always  time  enough  for  doing  mischief ;  while 
good  popes  have  rarely  time  to  do  good.  Few  not  far  advanced 
in  life  have  attamed  the  popedom  ;  and  if  it  be  very  natural,  on 
the  one  hand,  that  the  Church's  chief  should  be  a  man  venera- 

'■  On  Genesis  xxiv.  3. 


274  HISTORY   OF   THE   COUNCIL    OF   TRENT.  Book  IV. 

"ble  Oil  account  of  liis  years,  it  has  this  result,  on  the  other,  that 
the  tiara  ahiiost  always  graces  either  a  head  that  is  weak  and 
null,  or  one  rather  obstinate  than  strong. 

This  last  was  now  to  he  the  case.  Paul  lY.,^  elected  on  the 
4th  of  May,  1555,  was  a  severe  man  also,  and  full  of  good  in- 
tentions. The  day  that  Paul  III.  had  proclaimed  his  son  Duke 
of  Parma,  one  of  the  cardinals  had  dared  to  absent  himself  from 
the  consistory,  and  had  openly  made  a  pilgrimage  to  the  princi- 
pal churches  of  Rome,  as  if  to  ask  pardon  of  God  for  the  griev- 
ous scandal  that  had  been  committed.  That  cardinal  was  Peter 
CarafTa  ;  he  was  now  Paul  IV.  All  the  good  sentiments  with 
which  he  had  been  animated,  he  preserved,  but  they  were  ill 
seconded  by  his  temper,  which  was  that  of  a  surely,  morose,  and 
obstinate  old  man.  Scarcely  had  a  month  elapsed  after  his  elec- 
tion, when  this  became  so  evident,  that  the  first  personages  in 
Rome  addressed  him  only  with  fear  and  trembling.  If  he  de- 
sired that  there  should  be  reforms,  it  was  only  provided  none 
should  ask  for  them.  Never  did  papal  omnipotence  reproduce 
itself  in  a  stranger  medley  of  weakness  and  vigour,  of  greatness 
and  childishness.  Simple  in  his  own  person,  he  surrounded  him- 
self with  a  pomp  that  had  never  been  equalled  ;  with  the  ut- 
most contempt  for  brute  force,  he  committed  affairs  of  the  ut- 
most delicacy  to  his  nephew  Charles  Carafia,  one  of  the  greatest 
fighting  men  in  Italy,  whose  helmet  he  had  lost  no  time  m  con- 
verting into  a  cardinal's  hat.  After  discoursing,  in  a  pompous 
strain,  on  the  absolute  and  divine  authority  with  which  he  con- 
sidered himself  invested,  it  was  only  like  an  angry  child,  stamp- 
ing with  passion,  that  he  spoke  of  compelling  kings  to  humble 
themselves  before  his  throne.  He  wished  well,  but  all  the  good 
that  did  not  emanate  from  himself  he  viewed  beforehand  as 
mischievous  and  criminal.  As  for  the  council,  it  will  be  recol- 
lected that  it  was  he  who  said  that  he  could  not  understand  how 
sixty  bishops,  in  a  petty  tow^i  among  the  mountains,  should  know 
more  than  the  pope  and  the  clever  folks  at  Rome. 

These  clever  folks  he  on  one  occasion  designed  to  consult,  but 
in  a  singular  enough  manner.  He  had  entertained  the  idea  of 
commencing  his  reforms  with  the  rooting  out  of  Simony,  or  the 
traffic  in  spiritual  favours.  Such  a  commencement  it  will  be 
seen  at  once,  had  its  inconveniences.  Not  that  Simony  was  not 
widely  prevalent  and  highly  mischievous,  but  being  an  evil  very 
difficult  to  be  laid  hold  of,  from  the  diversity  of  forms  which  it 
assumed,  and  its  almost  countless  ramifications,  it  would  have 
been  better  to  proceed  first  against  abuses  more  positive,  and 
easier  both  to  be  defined  and  to  be  reached.     A  commission,  ac- 

^  Peter  Caraffa. 


Chap.  1.  1555.      VIOLENCE  AND    ECCENTRICITY    OF    PAUL   IV.  275 

cordinjjly,  ^vas  appointed.  Always  in  extremes,  the  pope  made 
it  consist  oid  Jiu/ulrcd  and  fijfij  members,  of  whom  twenty-lour 
were  eardinals,  and  twenty-live  bishops ;  in  all,  more  thari  double 
the  number  of  doctors  that  had  yet  appeared  at  Trent.  Never- 
theless, in  speaking  of  it,  he  took  care  to  add  that  he,  the  vicar 
of  Jesus  Christ,  knew  perfectly  what  was  to  be  done;  although, 
therefore,  he  held  this  sort  of  council,  it  was  nowise  with  the  in- 
tention of  following  any  opinion  not  entirely  conformable  with 
his  own.^ 

Great,  accordingly,  was  his  anger,  when  from  the  very  bo&om 
of  that  assembly  which  owed  its  existence  entirely  to  him,  there 
issued  certain  observations  on  the  necessity  for  a  general  council. 
Cardinal  du  Bcllai,  dean  of  the  sacred  college,  endeavoured  to 
appease  his  wrath,  by  saying  that  if  a  council  were  desirable,  it 
was  not  that  it  might  dictate  to  him  the  measures  necessar}'  to 
be  taken,  but  to  inquire  about  the  means  of  executing  them. 
On  this  he  exclaimed,  that  if  a  council  there  must  be,  he  would 
hold  it,  but  at  Rome  ;  that  he  would  rather  die  than  see  it  again 
met  at  Trent,  in  the  midst  of  tlie  Lutherans.  Then,  taking 
up  seriously  what  had  been  at  first  in  his  mouth  only  one  of  the 
sallies  that  people  had  become  accustomed  to,  he  caused  it  to  be 
intimated  to  all  the  princes  of  Christendom,  as  quite  settled,  that 
he  was  about  to  hold  a  council  at  Rome.  In  a  few^  days  this 
became  his  favourite  idea.  He  spoke  of  it  to  everybody,  particu- 
larly to  the  ambassadors  of  the  various  courts  ;  but  warning  them 
at  the  same  time  not  to  ibrget  to  tell  their  masters,  that  on  the 
council  being  once  formally  opened,  if  the  bishops  from  beyond 
Italy  did  not  appear,  their  presence  would  be  dispensed  with. 
As  for  the  emperor,  and  the  consent  and  concurrence  of  the  em- 

*  "  The  infallibilit}'  presupposed  as  residing  in  the  pope,  is  not  meant 
as  implying  that  he  is  aided  by  God's  Spirit  in  having  the  necessary 
illumination  for  deciding  all  questions,  but  it  consists  "in  this,  that  all 
the  questions  in  ^vhich  he  feels  himself  sufficiently  assisted  with  the 
light  required  forjudging  them,  he  decides,  but  with  respect  to  others 
in  which  he  does  not  feel  himself  sufficiently  assisted  with  light,  lie  re- 
mits to  the  council." — Bnperron.  Plere  we  liave  another  theorv  !  Were 
the  infallibility  fully  and  frankly  admitted,  which  Romanists  fa^in  would 
maintain,  would  there  be  any  such  seeking  for  refinements?  The  state- 
ment is  ingenious,  but  we  have  not  written  a  page,  and  will  not  have 
to  write  one,  in  which  it  is  not  contradicted  by  facts.  Few  popes,  in- 
deed, have  professed  the  doctrine  of  their  infallibility  so  very  bluntly 
as  Paul  lY. ;  but  no  more  is  there  any  one  who  has  ever  remitted  'a 
question  to  a  council  with  the  avowal,  that  it  was  out  of  his  power  to 
resolve  it.  "What  right,  moreover,  could  they,  after  such  an  avowal, 
pretertd  to  the  power  of  confirming  the  council's  decrees?  After  having 
declared  that  you  are  unable  of  yourself  to  try  a  question,  how  could 
you  decide  infallibly  that  it  has  been  rightly  tried  and  determined  by 
others?  '  ' 


276  HISTORY    OF  THE    COUNCIL  OF  TRENT.  Book  IV. 

peror,  not  a  word  must  be  said.     "  The  emperor  I"  he  would  say, 
"  why,  he  is  a  heretic." 

All  at  once  he  learned  that  this  dreadful  heretic  had  just 
agreed  to  a  truce  of  five  years  with  Henry  II.  of  France,  where- 
upon he,  the  very  man  who  had  so  often  said  that  a  pope  had 
only  to  will  a  thing  in  order  to  have  the  power  of  doing  it,  dis- 
missed at  once  the  contempt  he  had  shewn  for  oblique  methods 
of  effecting  his  purposes.  Two  legates  were  despatched,  one  to 
Germany,  another  to  France,  for  the  purpose,  say  their  instruc- 
tions, of  entering  into  some  arrangements  with  the  two  courts 
about  the  holding  of  the  Council.  One  of  the  two,  however. 
Cardinal  Hebiba,  whose  mission  was  to  Germany,  was  enjoined 
to  travel  as  slowly  as  possible,  while  the  other,  Cardinal  Caraffa, 
was  to  use  the  utmost  expedition,  their  real  object,  as  the  reader 
must  have  perceived,  having  been  to  bring  about  a  rupture  of 
the  truce.  In  fact,  before  Rebiba  had  accomplished  his  journey, 
Caraffa  had  seen  and  gained  over  the  king  of  France.  But  the 
truce  had  been  ratified  by  the  oaths  of  the  parties.  What  of 
that  ?  the  pope  had  anticipated  its  being  so,  and  was  prepared  to 
annul  their  oaths.  But — here  there  was  an  objection  of  greater 
delicacy  —  the  pope  was  a  greybeard  of  eighty-three.  What 
warranty  could  he  offer  ?  Neither  had  tliis  escaped  him.  He 
engaged  to  create,  from  among  the  most  devoted  partisans  of 
France,  enough  of  cardinals  to  secure  the  election  after  himself 
of  a  pope  who  should  be  hostile  to  the  emperor.  The  negotia- 
tion succeeded ;  the  truce  was  broken.  "  Seated  for  whole  hours 
at  the  table,  drinking  that  black  volcanic  wine  which  is  still 
called  Mangiaguerra,  he  broke  out  with  impetuous  eloquence 
against  those  schismatics,  those  heretics,  those  accursed  of  God, 
that  seed  of  the  Jews  and  the  Moors,  that  refuse  of  the  icorld, 
in  fine,  as  he  called  the  Spaniards,  But  he  took  comfort,  he 
would  say,  from  those  words  of  Scripture,  '  Thou  shalt  tread 
upon  the  lion  and  the  adder  :  the  young  lion  and  the  dragon 
shalt  thou  trample  under  feet.'  He  saw  the  moment  at  hand 
when  Charles  and  his  son  would  be  punished  for  their  sins,  and 
when  he,  Paul  IV.,  should  deliver  Italy  out  of  their  hands, "^ 

Had  he  any  hope  then  of  remaining  at  peace  after  France  and 
Germany  had  recommenced  tearing  each  other  to  pieces  ?  Yet 
he  had  at  his  gates  a  man  sufficiently  accustomed  to  inspire 
dread,  the  Duke  of  Alva,  who  now  held  Naples  in  the  name 
of  the  emperor.  After  some  parleying,  which  only  brought  out 
more  strongly  the  growing  eccentricity  of  the  old  pope,  the  duke 
opened  the  campaign,  and  ere  the  close  of  the  year  (1556), 
almost  v/ithout  having  struck  a  blow,  his  troops  had  occupied 
*  Ranke,  History  of  the  Popedom. 


Chap.  I.  1556.  ENERGY    OF   THE   POPE,  277 

the  entire  State  of  the  Church.  He  would  restore  it,  he  said,  to 
the  pope  that  was  to  be.  Yet  he  did  not  attennpt  to  take  Rome, 
and  even  had  he  made  the  attempt,  it  is  doubtful  how  far  he 
would  have  succeeded,  for  in  fortifying  that  city  Paul  had  found 
all  the  energy  of  a  young  man,  and  all  the  skill  of  a  general ; 
possibly,  too,  there  was  no  real  desire  to  push  matters  to  that 
extremity.  Charles  V.  had  by  this  time  abdicated  his  throne. 
His  brother  Ferdinand,  who  succeeded  him  in  the  empire,  was 
too  pacific  ;  his  brother  Philip,  who  succeeded  him  in  Spain,  too 
devout.  He  was  the  very  Philip  whom  we  shall  find  ere  long 
seriously  questioning  with  himself  whether  he  should  not  cause 
the  body  of  his  father,  Charles  Y.,  to  be  disinterred  and  burnt 
as  that  of  a  heretic.  As  for  that,  setting  aside  the  atrocity  of 
causing  his  father's  body  to  be  burnt,  and  supposing  that  it  can 
ever  be  right  to  burn  any  one,  it  would  only  have  been  justice. 
We  have  had  opportunities  of  seeing,  almost  at  every  page,  what 
sort  of  Catholic  Charles  V.  had  been. 

Be  this  as  it  might,  none  in  the  rest  of  Europe  could  doubt 
that  Paul  was  blockaded  in  his  capital,  and  menaced  with  a  siege. 
Never  did  pope  at  the  very  acme  of  his  power  and  glory,  issue 
his  directions  or  his  commands  with  more  unflinchingr  courage. 
Even  in  Rome  itself  the  more  the  danger  increased,  the  better 
he  contrived  to  make  himself  obeyed.  The  cardinals  that  op- 
posed his  views  lay  imprisoned  in  the  castle  of  St.  Angelo  ;  and 
as  all  opposition  was  in  his  eyes  not  only  revolt  but  heresy,  he 
talked  of  delivering  several  of  them  to  the  Inquisition.  At  the 
first  murmur  of  discontent  the  highest  dignitaries  were  cashiered 
as  if  mere  clerks.  Legates  employed  at  the  remotest  distances 
trembled  at  the  thought  of  ofTending  him  as  much  as  the  cardi- 
nals of  his  household  ;  nations  and  kings  asked  themselves  who 
then  was  this  man  that  he  should  thus  use  persons  who  had  al- 
ways been  seen  surrounded  with  tokens  of  deference,  prelates  but 
lately  his  equals,  and  any  of  whom,  in  the  course  of  a  few  days, 
might  occupy  his  throne.  But  the  incoherence  of  his  orders,  the 
feverish  violence  of  his  threats,  and  the  odd  forms  he  employed, 
shewed  plainly  enough  that  the  pope  was  neither  a  Gregory  YIL, 
nor  an  Innocent  III.,  but  a  poor  old  creature  whose  head  had 
been  turned  on  mounting  St.  Peter's  throne. 

In  the  first  months  of  the  year  1557,  his  afTairs  seemed  to  take 
a  more  favourable  turn.  "  The  Duke  of  Alva  hesitated,  paused 
at  every  step,  fought  worshipping j"  says  John  von  Muller.^ 
The  Duke  of  Guise  passed  into  Italy  with  a  sufficient  force  to 
keep  the  Spaniards  in  check.  But  Paul  had  imagined  that  the 
French  would  march  straight  to  Naples ;  there  was  no  getting 
^  History  of  Switzerland,  book  x. 


2*78  HISTORY  OF  THE    COUNCIL   OF   TRENT,  Book  IV. 

him  to  understand  that  this  would  be  contrary  to  all  the  rules 
of  good  tactics,  and  that  what  an  army  has  first  to  look  to  is  to 
secure  itself  against  being  attacked  in  its  rear.  It  was  found 
necessary  to  humour  him,  but  in  proportion  as  the  French  went 
down  into  Italy,  the  Spaniards  went  up  to  Rome.  Every  step 
towards  bringing  him  succour  threatened  to  prove  his  ruin.  At 
last  the  news  of  the  loss  of  the  battle  of  St.  (iuentin  reached  the 
French,  and  a  disaster  so  deplorable  to  France,  and  which 
seemed  to  place  the  pope  in  the  absolute  power  of  his  enemies, 
proved,  on  the  contrary,  his  salvation.  The  Duke  of  Guise 
having  returned  to  France,  the  Duke  of  Alva  returned  to  Naples, 
and  soon  began  to  speak  about  peace.  The  vanquished  now 
dictated  terms  to  the  victor,  and  Alva  went  himself  to  Rome  to 
seek  absolution  from  the  censures  he  had  incurred.  This  was 
about  the  end  of  September,  1557. 

Not  a  moment  of  peace  could  the  Church  and  Europe  enjoy 
that  the  grand  affair  of  the  council  did  not  occupy  all  men's 
thoughts  afresh  ;  but  the  pope,  with  the  usual  originality  of  his 
views,  had  given  a  singularly  new  face  to  it.  That  which  the 
monarchs  of  Christendom  had  hitherto  made  a  bugbear  for  over- 
awing the  Court  of  Rome,  he  made  bold  to  use  as  a  bugbear  for 
overawing  those  monarchs.  He  spoke  of  nothing  less  than  of 
procuring  the  trial  and  condemnation  by  the  future  council  of 
all  who  had  profited  by  the  disorders  in  the  Church,  or  had  in- 
troduced new  disorders  into  it,  of  all  who  had  anyhow  interfered 
in  Church  affairs,  of  all,  in  fine,  who  had  favoured  or  tolerated  the 
Reformation ;  and  although  none  could  see  well  how  he  should 
set  about  executing  such  condemnations,  such  a  threat  produced 
some  alarm.  AYas  it,  as  some  said,  a  mere  trick  meant  to  deter 
princes  from  having  any  wish  to  see  the  council  again  at  work  ? 
We  think  not.  There  is  nothing  improbable  in  a  man  of  his 
impetuous  imagination,  and  with  such  preposterous  ideas  of  the 
rights  and  position  of  a  pope,  seriously  intending  to  make  the 
council  a  court  of  Justice  for  the  trial  of  kings.  The  latter, 
meanwhile,  continued  as  actively  as  ever  to  imbrue  their  hands 
in  the  blood  of  the  so-called  heretics.  Philip  II.  proceeded  with 
the  consolidation  of  the  Inquisition  in  Spain,  and  went  along 
with  his  court,  very  devoutly,  to  inhale  the  smoke  of  the  fires  at 
which  its  victims  were  bunit.  Henry,  or  his  parliament  rather, 
rejected  the  Inquisition,  but  he  took  care  to  prove  by  the  number 
and  the  cruelty  of  the  punishments  inflicted  on  the  Re  termed, 
that  the  Church  of  Rome  should  be  no  loser  on  that  account. 

Nor  did  this  testy  pontiff'  lay  claim  only  to  the  right  of  trying 
kings,  or  causing  them  to  be  tried.  Their  kingdoms,  the  empire 
itself,  were  but  the  gifts  of  the  Holy  See ;  and  this  old  dictum. 


Chap.  I.  1558.    THE    POPE'S   RIGHT  TO  APPOINT   KINGS.  279 

•which  one  might  suppose  to  huvo  been  forgotten,  was  openly 
avowed  anew  in  liis  words  and  deeds.  Henry  Vlll.  liad  erected 
Irekind  into  a  kingdom.  Paul  IV.  pronounced  the  erection  null ; 
to  the  pope  alone  it  belonged  to  erect  a  province  into  a  kingdom, 
as  well  as  to  reduce  a  kingdom  to  the  state  of  a  mere  province. 
If  dueen  Mary  was  to  be  (olueen  of  Ireland,  it  behoved  to  be 
through  him.  Mary  made  the  request,  and  the  pope  granted 
it.  Charles  V.  having  abdicated,  the  empire  passed  to  Ferdi- 
nand, Avhereupon  a  furious  manifesto  was  discharged  from  Rome. 
"  The  pope  alone,"  says  Sarpi,  "  has  the  right  of  appointing  the 
emperor."  And  though  the  popes  had  been  willing  to  yield  that 
right  to  the  electors,  it  was  in  the  case  of  vacancy  by  death  only, 
not  in  that  of  abdication.  The  election  which  had  taken  place 
was  accordingly  null,  and  the  pope  was  to  give  the  empire  to 
whomsoever  he  should  think  best.  He  engaged  liimself  to 
nothing  ;  nevertheless  if  Ferdinand  would  at  once  make  an  ac- 
knowledgment that  he  had  not  been  legitimately  elected,  and 
that  he  had  erred  in  allowing  himself  to  be  elected,  the  choice 
might  fall  upon  him. 

Though  Ferdinand  might  have  been  in  the  humour  to  yield, 
the  electors  would  not  have  allowed  him,  and  rather  than  that, 
would  have  nominated  another  emperor.  The  death  of  Charles 
V.  (21st  September,  1558)  seemed  at  first  to  have  simphfied  the 
question  ;  but  Paul  was  not  the  man  to  avail  himself  of  a  back 
door,  however  wide  and  however  honourable  for  him  to  use  it. 
Null  he  insisted  the  election  had  been,  and  null  it  must  remain, 
as  long  as  the  right  claimed  by  the  pope  should  not  be  formally 
acknowledged. 

"  I  have  often  heard  it  asked,"  says  De  Maistre,  "  by  what 
right  the  popes  deposed  the  emperors  ?  It  is  easy  to  reply,  By 
the  right  on  which  all  legitimate  authority  reposes,  possession  on 
the  one  hand,  and  assent  on  the  other." 

This  possession,  one  knows  however,  besides  being  very  far 
from  dating  from  the  first  centuries,  was  never  left  uncontested  ; 
that  assent  was  never  universal  or  free.  Even  were  it  other- 
wise, the  above  reasoning  would  still  be  a  mere  play  upon 
words.  Incontested  possession  proves  human  legitimacy  ;  but, 
when  asked  by  what  right  popes  disposed  of  thrones,  it  is  clear 
that  what  is  meant  by  the  question,  is  by  what  divine  right  they 
did  so.  And  this  question  is  all  the  more  pertinent,  inasmuch 
as  the  popes  themselves,  in  exercising  that  right,  have  always 
maintained  that  they  exercised  it  in  the  name  of  God. 

The  council  was  then  made  the  ground  for  resuminir  the  of- 
fensive.  Ferdinand  spoke  of  it  in  full  diet,  in  the  same  sense  that 
his  brother  had  done,  and  as  a  dyke  to  oppose  to  the  encroach- 


280  HISTORY    OF   THE   COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  IV. 

ments  of  Rome.  Much  more  than  this,  without  saying  abso- 
lutely that  the  decrees  ah-eady  published  should  be  quashed,  the 
Protestants  were  allowed  to  throw  out  the  idea  that  what  was 
now  to  be  thought  of,  was  quite  a  new  council,  summoned  and 
regulated  on  quite  a  new  system,  such,  in  a  word,  as  they  might 
ofier  to  submit  to.  Parties,  however,  could  not  come  to  any  such 
mutual  understanding  as  should  lead  to  a  definite  conclusion  ; 
but,  shortly  afterwards  (April,  1559),  France  and  Spain  having 
made  peace,  one  of  the  articles  of  the  treaty  bore  that  the  two 
monarchs  should  co-operate  towards  the  resumption  of  the  coun- 
cil. Although  less  threatening  to  the  pope  than  the  resolutions 
that  had  nearly  emanated  from  the  diet,  this  accord  in  such  a 
quarter  was  not  the  less  a  severe  check.  Paul  saw  that  he  was 
overmatched,  and  sank  under  a  surcharge  of  chagrin  and  resent- 
ment.  Germany  had  completely  broken  with  him,  and  coolly 
waited  for  his  death,  England,  delivered  from  Mar}',  had  de- 
clared itself  Protestant,  not  on  this  occasion  at  the  command  of  a 
prince,  but  with  an  all  but  universal  enthusiasm.  France  might 
any  day  do  the  same,  and  indeed  was  more  ripe  for  the  Reforma- 
tion than  had  at  first  been  the  case  with  more  than  one  of  the 
countries  that  afterwards  became  Protestant.  Italy,  Italy  itself 
was  profoundly  shaken  in  its  attachment  to  Rome  ;  there  was 
not  a  town  in  it  where  there  did  not  exist,  more  or  less  known, 
more  or  less  concealed,  a  knot  of  Calvinists  which  might  become, 
at  the  first  shock,  the  centre  of  an  Anti-Roman  Church.  In  this 
extremity  Paul  clung  to  the  Inquisition,  as  to  the  sole  and  last 
remaining  plank  of  safety  for  the  Church  and  for  himself.  In 
public  and  in  private,  in  his  discourses  and  in  his  letters,  every- 
where, in  short,  he  could  speak  of  nothing  else.  The  ambassa- 
dors placed  daily  before  his  eyes  a  hst  of  the  executions  ordered 
by  their  masters ;  the  only  balm  that  could  now  be  poured  on 
his  deeply  wounded  pride.  Never  had  Europe  been  covered 
with  so  frightful  a  network  of  persecutions  and  tortures  ;  and 
as  the  tyrant  of  old  ordered  the  bodies  of  his  slaves  to  be  opened 
that  he  might  warm  his  feet  in  their  reeking  bowels,  the  fires 
at  which  the  Protestants  were  consumed,  seemed  to  burn  afar 
only  to  keep  up  a  little  heat  and  life  in  the  ice-cold  limbs  of  the 
miserable  greybeard.  At  last  he  died  ;  and  his  last  looks  were 
still  turned  to  the  schedules  of  the  executions  ;  and  the  last  words 
he  uttered  were  a  recommendation  of  the  Inquisition,  as  a  father, 
at  the  point  of  death,  would  recommend  his  daughter  to  his  friends. 
Yet  in  the  midst  of  that  frightful  period  which  had  commenced 
long  before  the  time  of  Paul  IV.,  and  was  to  last  till  long  after, 
among  the  thirty  or  forty  thousand  victims  delivered  or  promised 
to  the  Roman  flames,  there  was  one  that  escaped,  one  destined  to 


Chap.  I.  1559.  ELECTION   OF  PIUS  IV.  281 

be  burnt  at  Geneva  instead  of  Lyons,  Paris,  Brussels,  Madrid,  or 
Vienna,  wherever,  in  line.  Koine  might  have  him  in  her  power  ; 
a  victim,  moreover,  whose  punishment  might  liave  appeared,  we 
do  not  say  just,  but  certainly  more  just  than  all  the  rest,  to  such 
a  pitch  had  the  man  carried  his  Ibolhardiness.  And,  behold,  how 
the  historians  of  Rome  exclaim  from  age  to  age  against  the  au- 
thor of  the  death  of  Servetus  I  Would  to  God  that  the  Relbrma- 
lion  could  snatch  from  its  annals  that  sad  page  of"  intolerance  and 
horror  I  But  if  those  who  reproach  her  with  it  would  begin  by 
first  tearing  all  pages  of  the  same  kind  from  their  own,  how  many, 
we  should  like  to  know,  would  be  left  ? 

After  entering  the  conclave  amid  the  yells  and  hootiiigs  of  the 
mobs  that  were  mutilating  and  dragging  through  the  city  the 
abhorred  statue  of  Paul  IV.,  the  cardinals  were  sensible  that 
another  such  reign  would,  both  at  home  and  abroad,  prove  the 
ruin  of  the  popedom.  They  found  no  great  difficulty,  accord- 
ingly, in  coming  to  a  general  understanding  as  to  the  engage- 
ments to  be  taken  before  proceeding  to  the  election,  and,  as  in 
preceding  conclaves,  among  these  the  calhng  of  a  council  held  a 
chief  place. 

Notwithstanding  this  unanimity  in  preliminary  proceedings, 
they  required  more  than  three  months  before  they  could  come  to 
agree  about  the  pope  they  were  to  elect.  At  last,  on  Christmas 
night  (1559),  the  votes  all  fell  on  John  de  Medicis,  who  took 
the  name  of  Pius  IV. 

With  more  decency  of  outward  manners  and  a  calmer  mind, 
the  new  pope  but  too  closely  resembled,  at  bottom,  his  deplorable 
predecessor.  If,  from  the  veiy  commencement  of  his  reign,  he 
shewed  a  disposition,  for  he  had  promised  as  much  before  his 
election,  to  recognise  Ferdinand  as  legitimate  emperor,  he  nearly 
spoilt  all  by  demanding  compliments  conceived  in  terms  that 
would  have  sanctioned  by  implication  all  the  pretensions  of  Paul. 
After  lengthened  conferences,  the  ambassador,  Scipio  d'Arco,  con- 
sented to  depart  a  little  from  the  letter  of  his  instructions.  A 
formula  was  drawn  up,  which,  without  giving  too  much  offence 
to  the  emperor,  should  not  wound  the  pride  of  the  pope.  Fer- 
dinand blamed  his  ambassador,  but  did  not  think  proper  to  go 
the  length  of  an  official  disavowal  of  what  he  had  done. 

As  for  the  council,  Pius  had  promised  that  also,  and  he  did 
not  make  bold  to  say,  as  Paul  IV.  had  done,  that  a  pope  could 
not  suppose  himself  bound  by  the  promises  of  a  cardinal  ;  but  the 
more  he  looked  at  the  matter,  the  more  he  saw  difficulties  and 
dangers  attending  it.  Still  he  was  sensible  that  in  manifesting 
opposition  to  it,  besides  proving  false  to  his  promise,  he  would 
escape  those  difficulties  only  to  draw  on  others,  and  those  dan- 


282  HISTORY    OF   THE    COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  IV. 

gers  only  to  incur  possibly  greater.  The  more,  then,  thought  he, 
that  he  should  pretend  to  enter  into  the  views  of  the  secular 
princes,  the  better  placed  he  should  be  afterwards  for  shewing 
the  inconveniences  that  would  result  from  them.  At  last  he 
clearly  saw  that  the  question  must  come  to  an  issue  at  one  time 
or  another,  and  he  had  sufficient  confidence  in  himself  not  to  de- 
sire at  any  price  to  bequeath  the  hazards  of  the  contest  to  anoth- 
er. Accordingly,  Count  d'Arco  was  agreeably  surprised  when, 
at  his  second  audience,  the  pope  spoke  of  the  council  as  of  a  very 
simple  affair,  and  one  on  wliich  his  mind  was  fully  made  up. 

Meanwhile,  month  after  month  passed,  the  pope  renewed  his 
promise  on  every  occasion,  and  yet  made  it  little  a  matter  of 
conscience  to  execute  it  In  France,  where,  right  or  wrong,  the 
council  was  viewed  mainly  as  the  grand  cure  for  heresies,  the 
daily  advances  achieved  by  the  Reformation  made  the  Roman 
Catholics  fret  at  the  tardy  procedure  of  Pius  IV.  "  The  confla- 
gration is  at  Paris,"  said  John  de  Montlac,  bishop  of  Valence  ; 
"  we  have  the  waters  of  the  Seine,  and  wait  for  those  of  the 
Tiber  !"  The  idea  of  a  national  council,  so  often  put  forward, 
abandoned,  taken  up  again,  and  again  abandoned,  came  in  the 
end  to  captivate  men  of  all  characters  ;  and  before  coming  to 
any  common  understanding  as  to  the  forms  to  be  adopted,  the 
opening  of  it  was  fixed,  happen  what  might,  for  the  20th  of 
January,  1561.  Henry  11.  was  dead.  His  widow,  Catherine 
de  Medicis,  now  governed  in  the  name  of  Francis  II. 

Although  no  offence  had  been  meant  to  the  pope,  no  small  un- 
easiness was  felt  as  to  how  he  would  view  the  matter.  In  point 
of  fact,  he  took  it  so  ill,  that  unless  there  was  to  be  an  entire 
rupture  with  him,  which,  as  matters  stood,  and  in  the  face  of 
the  Reformation,  would  have  been  madness,  it  was  soon  seen 
to  be  impossible  to  persist  in  it.  "What  shocked  him  almost  as 
much  as  the  convocation  of  the  national  council,  was  the  am- 
nesty granted  to  the  Protestants  who  had  taken  up  arms  in  Lan- 
guedoc  and  Poitou.  "  V/ho,  then,  is  your  king,"  said  he  to  the 
French  ambassador,  "  that  he  should  take  upon  himself  to  par- 
don sins  committed  against  God  ?  Can  any  one  be  surprised  if 
the  wrath  of  God  press  heavily  on  a  country  where  the  author- 
ity of  the  Holy  See,  and  of  the  sacred  canons,  is  trampled  under 
feet?"  Philip  II.  at  the  same  time  besought  the  queen  regent 
to  recall  the  unlucky  convocation,  or  at  least  to  let  it  pass  with- 
out effect.  She  yielded  the  point.  The  idea  seemed  to  be  aban- 
doned ;  but  this  very  condescension  gave  Roman  Catholic  France 
the  right  to  insist  on  the  pope  no  longer  keeping  her  waiting  for 
the  remedy  to  which  she  looked  for  her  salvation. 

Had  he  come  to  see  that  a  council  would  be  of  no  use  in  op- 


1 


Chap.  1.15G0.     MARVELLOUS    PRESERVATION   OF   GENEVA.  283 

posing  llic  proofress  of  the  Kcformation,  or  was  he  still  influcDced 
by  nothing  but  antipathy  and  distrust  ?  We  cannot  say  ;  but, 
notwithstanding  all  tins  urgency,  he  nnade  no  greater  haste. 
"  The  French  fret  with  impatience,"  he  would  say  ;  "  well, 
then,  let  them  begin  by  seizing  Geneva,  seeing  it  is  the  focus  of 
the  contagion  ?"  And  forthwith  his  mmcios  were  charged  to 
propose  that  undertaking  simultaneously  to  the  King  of  France 
and  the  Duke  of  Savoy. 

How  happened  it,  in  fact,  that  Geneva  still  stood  erect  ?  It 
had  now  for  thirty  years  openly  declared  for  the  Reformation, 
and  had  audaciously  offered  an  asylum  to  all  the  proscribed. 
France  was  inundated  with  its  missionaries  and  its  books  With- 
out arrogating  to  itself  any  supremacy  as  a  matter  of  right,  it 
had  not  the  less  become,  in  point  of  fact,  the  metropolis  and  the 
Rome  of  all  the  Protestantism  of  tJie  West.  It  was,  without 
contradiction,  a  spectacle  unparalleled  in  history,  to  see  a  repub- 
lic of  twenty-five  thousand  souls,  braving  with  impunity  at  one 
and  the  same  time,  several  states,  any  one  of  which,  it  might  be 
thought,  could  have  destroyed  it  with  a  breath.  The  preserva- 
tion of  Geneva,  in  the  1 6th  century,  is  in  itself  a  more  extraor- 
dinary fact  than  the  successive  conquest  of  Italy  and  of  Europe 
by  the  Roman  republic,  which  also  was  a  small  city  when  it 
began  its  career;  and  when  it  vaunts  its  having  been  guarded 
by  Providence,  its  greatest  enemies  cannot  deny  that  it  has  a 
thousand  reasons  for  believing  it. 

As  little  can  they  deny  the  invincible  confidence  it  reposed  in 
the  goodness  of  its  cause,  and  in  the  protection  of  God.  "It  was 
David  before  Goliath,"  says  its  old  chronicler.  Reset ;  "  but  be- 
fore a  Goliath  all  the  more  formidable,  in  that  he  made  gold  to 
flash  in  his  hand  as  well  as  steel."  In  1559,  Alardi,  bishop  of 
Mondovi,  came  to  Geneva,  commissioned  by  Emmanuel-Phili- 
bert,  Duke  of  Savoy,  who  had  recently  mounted  the  throne,  and 
now  would  fain  try  whether  words  might  not  succeed  better 
than  arms.  Alardi  was  allowed  to  appear  before  the  council 
of  the  city.  "  What  a  life  I"  said  he.  "  Wliat,  always  on  the 
watch  I  Not  a  man  in  this  city  which  I  once  knew  so  flourish- 
ing, who  now  can  call  two  thousand  crowns  his  own.  Ah  I 
how  much  otherwise  would  it  be,  had  you  the  support  of  the 
flower  of  chivalry,  the  most  magnificent  prince  of  the  age  I" 
"  The  prince  is  great,"  replied  tJic  Geneva  gentlemen,  "  but 
God  is  greater  still."  And  so  the  bishop  went  as  he  came. 
"  Thanks  to  the  intrigues  of  a  man  called  Calvin,"  says  a  Savoy 
chronicler. 

This  time,  accordingly,  at  the  voice  of  Pius  IV.,  it  was  with 
the  sword  that  Gohath  was  to  come  to  the  attack.     "  The  ser- 


284  HISTORY   OF  THE   COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  IV. 

pent,"  wrote  the  pontiff^  "must  be  strangled  in  its  nest.  Do 
you  require  money  ?  You  are  authorized  to  raise,  for  the  holy 
war,  tithes  from  your  clergy.  I  for  one  have  taken  the  initia- 
tive, by  getting  ready  my  men  at  arms,  and  twenty  thousand 
crowns."^  Of  the  three  states  then  invited  to  the  ruin  of  Ge- 
neva, there  was  not  one  that  had  not  long  cast  an  angry  and 
covetous  eye  upon  it.  The  dukes  of  Savoy  have  never  ceased  to 
claim  it  back  as  a  part  of  their  heritage  ;  Spain  would  have  been 
too  happy  to  unite  it  with  its  possessions  in  Franche-Comte  ; 
France  viewed  it  as  an  important  post  between  Savoy  and  the 
possessions  of  Spain.  Nothing  more  easy  than  for  the  three  to 
unite  for  the  purpose  of  taking  it ;  but  then,  to  whom  was  it 
afterwards  to  be  given  ?  That  question  which  had  saved  it 
hitherto,  was  to  save  it  once  more.  The  pope  had  succeeded 
only  in  raising  one  rampart  more  around  that  retreat  which  he 
pointed  out  to  the  hatred  and  the  cupidity  of  its  crowned  neigh- 
bours. Collectively  invited  to  this  holy  war,  the  three  princes 
came  to  consider  themselves  bound  by  a  sort  of  oifensive  treaty, 
by  which  each  forfeited  in  some  sort  the  right  to  proceed  to  the 
attack  alone  ;  he  could  not  take  Geneva,  without  reclamations 
on  the  part  of  the  other  two.  And  Geneva  was  destined  to  sur- 
vive ;  and  it  was  to  be  in  vain,  ever  in  vain,  that  the  pope  and 
his  satellites  were  to  press  to  its  downfall ;  in  vain  was  Dubar- 
tas  to  express  his  amazement  at  the  sovereign's  allowing  it  to 
live  on  ;  like  those  peasants,  we  find  him  say, 

"...     whose  useless  hands 
Leave  on  the  apple-tree  some  withered  branch, 
Where,  during  winter,  may  survive  till  spring 
The  noxious  caterpillar's  brood  secure ;" 

in  vain  was  St.  Francis  de  Sales,  the  titular  bishop  of  the  re- 
bellious city,  indignant  at  seeing  it  comprised  in  the  treaty  of 
peace  between  Henry  IV.  and  the  duke,  to  exclaim  that "  it  is  a 
scandalous  blot  on  that  happy  peace,  which  the  impious  ought 
not  to  be  allowed  to  enjoy  ;"^  in  vain  was  he  to  exclaim,  on 
another  occasion,  "Geneva  is  to  the  devils  what  Rome  is  to 
the  angels.  All  Catholics,  especially  the  pope  and  the  secular 
princes,  ought  to  devote  themselves  wholly,  either  to  the  con- 
version or  the  destruction  of  that  Babylon  ;"^  the  lowly  Babylon 
was  to  live  on  ;  and  if  one  day  it  is  to  perish,  it  will  be  because 
it  has  accomplished  its  task.  The  miracle  of  its  life  shall  have 
lasted  long  enough  for  it  to  carry  with  it  to  the  tomb,  the  thought 
that  its  death  is  not  God's  doing,  but  man's. 

Thus  the  pope's  appeal  had  been  without  effect ;  nor  did  he 

^  J.  von  Muller,  Hist,  of  Switzerland,  1.  x. 

^  Letter  to  Clement  VIII.  ^  Memoir  addressed  to  the  pope. 


1 


Chap.  1.  1500.  THE   COUNCIL   TO   BE  ASSEMBLED.  286 

conceal  his  chaf^riii.  Since  it  was  neither  from  humanity  nor 
toleration  that  tlie  three  sovereigns  respected  the  independence 
of  Geneva,  the  court  of  Rome  had  reason  to  consider  it  far  from 
honourahlo  in  Roman  Catholic  princes,  to  dare  giving  thus  far 
the  precedence  to  politics  over  religion,  and  to  the  interests  of 
their  glory  over  those  of  their  faith,  but  in  order  to  be  consist- 
ent, the  pope  himself  ought  to  have  had  less  the  air  of  doing  the 
same  thing,  and  of  speaking  of  Geneva  only  to  escape  from  hav- 
ing anything  to  say  about  Trent.  "  The  further  we  proceed," 
w^rote  the  queen  regent^  on  this  occasion,  "  the  more  does  it  ap- 
pear that  nothing  is  done  towards  the  calling  of  the  council,  ex- 
cept in  the  way  of  dissembling  and  mere  show,  and  with  infinite 
delays  and  disguises." 

Renouncing,  then,  all  hope  of  making  a  diversion,  the  pope 
called  to  him  all  the  ambassadors  then  present  in  Rome.  He 
told  them  to  announce  to  their  respective  courts,  that  the  bull 
for  the  convocation  would  shortly  appear,  adding,  that  after  hav- 
ing passed  a  great  many  cities  under  review,  he  had  found  none 
so  suitable  as  Trent.  But,  if  he,  on  his  part,  was  to  engage  to 
summon  the  council,  the  princes  were  to  engage,  on  theirs,  to 
cause  its  decisions  to  be  observed.  Why  not  proceed  at  once  to 
form  a  kind  of  armed  confederation,  ready  to  act  at  a  moment's 
notice,  against  whatever  party,  prince  or  people,  should  refuse 
to  obey  ?  A  very  simple  idea,  no  doubt,  and  eminently  Roman 
Catholic,  but,  withal,  manifestly  impracticable ;  a  useless  sub- 
ject for  new  conferences  and  new  delays. 

Not  only  was  no  attention  paid  to  this,  but  the  choice  of  the 
place  raised  more  objections  than  ever.  Philip  II.  was  the  only 
prince  that  declared  himself  satisfied  with  it ;  still  he  required, 
as  if  in  return  for  an  act  of  great  condescension,  permission  to 
levy  a  subsidy  on  the  clergy  of  Spain.  The  court  of  France  ob- 
jected, as  it  had  always  done,  that  Trent  was  too  much  mider 
the  hand  of  the  emperor  ;  the  emperor  that  it  was  too  much 
under  the  hand  of  the  pope,  if  not  in  reality,  at  least  in  appear- 
ance ;  and  that  tliis  would  be  enough  to  make  the  Protestants 
revolt  against  all  that  might  be  done  there. 

Both  courts,  moreover,  agreed  in  saying  that  there  must  be  a 
new  council,  not  the  resumption  and  winding  up  of  the  old. 
This  was  more  serious,  and  went  to  upset  all.  The  pope,  ac- 
cordingly, hesitated  not  to  reply  that  he  should  consider  himself 
as  a  traitor  to  the  Church,  a  traitor  to  the  Holy  See,  were  he 
to  allow  the  questioning  of  a  single  point  of  faith  of  those  that 
had  been  previously  decided.  He  was  right.  On  the  part  of 
Roman  Catholic  princes  it  would  have  been  preposterous  and 
'  Letter  to  the  ambassador  of  France  at  Rome. 


286  HISTORY   OF    THE    COUNCIL    OF    TRENT.  Book  IV. 

criminal ;  but  we  have  already  shewn  how  much  meaning  there 
was  in  the  fact.  Fourteen  years  only  had  elapsed  since  the 
publication  of  the  first  decrees,  when  lo  I  Roman  Catholics  ap- 
pear, who,  without  rejecting  these  themselves,  yet  propose  that 
they  shall  be  held  as  never  having  been  passed.  AVho  after 
this  will  maintain  that  the  dogma  of  the  Church's  infalhbility 
was  then  admitted  in  the  same  sense  and  in  the  same  manner 
as  it  has  been  since  ? 

Meanwhile,  the  idea  of  a  national  council  recovered  favour  in 
France.  At  a  great  meeting  of  the  royal  council  held  at  Fon- 
tainebleau  (August  21),  the  bishop  of  Valence  repeated  his 
former  advice,  and  urged  it  strongly ;  Charles  de  Marillac, 
archbishop  of  Yiemie  (in  Dauphiny),  spoke  warmly  in  the  same 
sense.  The  Protestants  were  for  this  council  ;  not  that  they 
looked  for  any  good  directly  from  it,  or  that  they  were  disposed 
to  submit  to  it,  but  in  the  conviction  that  it  would  lead  to  a 
rupture  with  Rome,  and,  by  that  alone,  would  prove  a  great 
step  towards  them.  Coligny,  their  organ  in  the  council,  con- 
fined himself  accordingly  to  an  exposition  of  their  petitions  and 
complaints.  His  language  was  that  of  a  serious  man  and  a  sub- 
m.issive  subject  ;  but  the  simplicity  of  his  words  only  placed  in 
stronger  relief  the  immensity  of  the  resources  which  his  party 
was  beginning  to  have  at  its  disposition.  The  Duke  of  Guise, 
and  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine,  acting  as  the  organs  of  extreme 
Roman  Catholicism,  replied  only  by  soliciting  more  and  more 
rigorous  measures.  Why,  said  they,  have  a  council  in  France  ? 
Wherefore  even  a  council-general  ?  Could  there  be  a  doubt 
that  the  Protestant  opinions  were  heresies,  long  ago  condemned 
by  the  Church  ?  There  was  truth  in  what  they  said.  In  a 
dogmatical  point  of  view,  any  council  whatever  could  not  fail  to 
prove  useless.  The  Roman  Catholics  knew  well  that  they 
would  condemn  ;  the  Protestants  that  they  would  be  condemn- 
ed. On  these  representations  a  middle  course  was  adopted.  It 
was  resolved  that  the  bishops  of  the  kingdom  should  be  con- 
vened, not  as  a  comicil,  but  to  deliberate  whether  it  would  be 
proper  to  hold  one. 

This  pretended  preparatory  assembly  so  much  resembled  that 
which  had  apparently  been  abandoned,  that  in  so  far  as  the  pope 
was  concerned,  it  was  almost  all  the  same  ;  and  it  having  been 
proposed  that  it  should  meet  on  the  20th  of  January,  he  saw  that 
his  bull  must  absolutely  appear  before  that  date.  Pallavicini 
tries  to  assign  the  least  influence  possible  to  fear  on  this  determ- 
ination of  the  pope  ;  but  the  details  which  he  himself  relates, 
leave  no  doubt  on  this  head.  Other  details  may  be  seen,  not 
only  in  Sarpi  and  De  Thou,  but  also  in  a  collection  of  pieces  be- 


Chap.  I.  1560.      HOW   SHOULD   THE   UbLL    BE   WORDED?  287 

longing  to  lliat  period,^  publi-shed  at  Gotha,  a  century  ago,  and 
which  throMS  a  very  vahuiblo  hght  on  several  parts  of  the  his- 
tory of  the  council  of  Trent.  It  is  there  we  found,  in  a  letter 
from  Cardinal  Borromeo  to  Cardinal  Hosius,  bishop  of  Warrrria, 
among  other  admissions,  the  following :  "  Considering  what 
scandal  it  would  be  for  all  Christendom,  his  Holiness  has  re- 
solved to  prevent  this  national  council  by  the  celebration  of  a 
general  and  o'cnmcnical  council.'""  This  alleged  universal  scan- 
dal would  hardly  have  scandalized,  at  that  moment,  more  than 
the  court  of  Rome,  and  who  could  foresee  at  what  point  the  con- 
tagion would  stop  ? 

The  question  now  was  hoAV  the  bull  should  1bc  worded.  A 
commission  was  appointed  for  this  task.  Among  so  many  con- 
flicting interests  and  susceptibilities,  the  arrangement  of  a  piece 
of  writing  which  should  give  these  the  least  possible  offence,  was 
no  small  afiair,  and  what  was  most  of  all  requisite,  was  to  fall 
on  some  mode  of  evading  the  question  of  the  continuation  of  the 
council.  After  many  attempts  this  was  accomplished,  but  not 
without  some  strange  shifts  and  fetches.  Pallavicini,  according 
to  custom,  denies  the  fact  in  the  lump,  and  then  admits  it  in  de- 
tail. After  a  brief  analysis  of  the  bull,  "  In  this  manner,"  says 
he,  "  the  odious  term  continuation  was  thrown  out,  but  its  equi- 
valent was  put  in."  The  equivalent  is  there  without  doubt,  and 
the  sequel  sutRciently  proved  that  the  pope  quite  intended  to  put 
it  there  ;  but  yet  it  presents  a  curious  triumph  of  skill,  for  we 
have  a  bull  several  pages  in  length,  after  the  reading  of  which, 
supposing  that  its  history  were  lost,  one  might  ask  whether  it  re- 
lated to  a  council  that  was  to  be  continued  or  to  one  that  was  to 
be  commenced  anew. 

As  to  the  question  of  the  place,  it  having  necessarily  to  be 
settled,  care  was  taken  to  give  the  principal  parties  opposed  to  it, 
to  understand  beforehand,  that  the  choice  made  was  provisional 
only,  and  that  the  assembly  once  met  at  Trent,  there  was  nothing 
to  hinder  its  being  translerred  elsewhere.  In  reality  the  pope's 
choice  had  been  fixed  invincibly.  In  the  new  aspect  which  the 
aliair  now  assumed,  he  could  no  longer  desire  to  see  a  translation 
even  to  Bologna,  or  to  Rome  itself,  for  that  would  have  made 
the  connexion  which  it  was  necessary  that  he  should  succeed  in 
establishing  between  the  old  sessions  and  the  new,  more  and  more 
difficult,  if  not  impossible.  It  Avas  only  at  Trent  that  one  could 
thenceforth  have  the  continuation  and  the  close  of  the  council  of 

'  Tabulariura  Ecclesijc  Ronianre,  by  Solonaon  Cyprianua. 

^  Consideraus  Sua  Sanotitas  quanli  id  scandali  univei-so  populo  chris- 
tiano  esset,  decrevit  celebratione  universalis  cecumeuicique  concilii  na- 
tionale  illud  pvajvenire. 


288  HISTORY   OF  THE  COUNCIL  OF  TRENT.  Book  IV. 

Trent,  and  this,  indeed,  must  have  been  long  felt  to  be  the  case. 
The  translation  of  the  sittings  to  Bologna,  which  had  been  so 
ardently  desired,  and  so  eagerly  pleaded  for,  must,  as  any  one 
may  perceive,  have  had  a  most  untoward  influence,  in  all  future 
time,  on  the  authority  of  the  council.  If  the  decrees  had  been 
issued,  some  from  Trent,  others  from  Bologna  or  elsewhere,  they 
might  indeed,  legally,  have  had  the  same  weight,  but  collectively 
they  would  not  have  had  that  imposing  unity  with  which  the 
council  of  Trent  has  been  invested  in  the  eyes  of  those  who  are 
ignorant  of  its  history.  Will  the  common  herd  ever  think  of 
inquiring  whether  ten  years  elapsed  between  the  decree  on  the 
eucharist  and  that  on  the  mass,  two  decrees  so  closely  related  to 
each  other  ?  Will  they  ever  know  that  of  the  seventy  bishops 
who  voted  the  former  of  these  decrees,  four  or  five  only  concurred 
in  drawing  up  the  latter  ?  Both  pass  as  The  Council  of  Trent, 
and  no  further  inquiry  is  made. 

Yet  this  bull,  so  painfully  elaborated  with  the  view  of  content- 
ing everybody,  contented  none.  The  secular  princes  persisted, 
each  for  himself,  in  making  no  account  of  the  difficulties  with 
which  the  pope  was  beset.  The  emperor  and  the  court  of  France 
even  went  so  far  as  to  call  for  another  bull,  in  which  the  council 
to  be  summoned  should  be  one  entirely  new  ;  the  king  of  Spain 
complained,  on  the  contrary,  that  the  pope  had  not  had  the  cour- 
age to  clearly  announce  the  continuation  of  the  other :  the  Protest- 
ants, in  fine,  had  been  saying  over  and  over  again  that  they  wanted 
neither  the  old  nor  a  new  of  the  same  kind  as  the  old.  Hence  con- 
ferences without  end,  which  it  were  useless  to  detail.  The  bull 
had  appeared  on  the  29th  of  November ;  it  appointed  Easterday 
1561  for  the  opening.  Easter  had  arrived ,  and  parties  were  as  far 
from  a  common  understanding  as  they  had  been  at  Christmas. 

The  pope,  nevertheless,  had  nominated  his  legates ;  these 
being  at  first  but  two,  Hercules  of  Gonzaga,  commonly  called 
bishop  of  Mantua,  and  Cardinal  Du  Puy  of  Nice.  Four  others 
were  appointed  afterwards :  these  were  Cardinals  Hosius,  Seri- 
pandi,  Simonetta,  and  Altemps,  the  last  being  the  pope's  nephew. 
The  Cardinal  of  Mantua  was  to  preside. 

On  their  arrival  at  Trent  two  days  after  Easter,  nine  bishops 
only  were  found  there,  and  all  of  these  Italians.  Leaving  these 
to  hold  some  preparatory  conferences  with  shut  doors,  let  us  see 
what  was  passing  elsewhere. 

Francis  II.  had  died  on  the  2d  of  December,  1560,  and  had  been 
succeeded  by  his  brother  Charles  IX.,  under  the  regency  of  his 
mother  and  of  Anthony  of  Bourbon,  king  of  Navarre.  A  meeting 
of  the  States-general,  held  shortly  afterwards  at  Orleans,  had 
served  only  to  throw  light  on  the  divisions  in  the  Roman  Catholic 


Chap.  I.  1561.      DEMANDS  OF   CATHERINE   DE    MEDICIS.  289 

party.  The  nobility  and  the  ticrs-ctat  had  declaimed  against 
the  clergy  ;  the  clergy  had  found  they  could  not  attack  the  Prot- 
estants without  attacking  those  who,  without  being  Protestants, 
yet  scrupled  little  to  agree  with  them  in  many  things.  Now, 
these  half  Protestants  were  daily  becoming  more  numerous  The 
States  of  Orleans  had  almost  unanimously  voted  resolutions,  w^liich 
were,  it  is  true,  either  left  unexecuted  or  were  marred  in  the 
execution,  yet  the  boldness  of  which  is  a  curious  symptom  of  the 
progress  that  had  been  made,  unintentionally,  in  the  ways  of  the 
Reformation.  The  meeting  had  petitioned  for  the  election  of 
bishops  by  the  clergy,  with  the  intervention  of  a  certain  number 
of  the  nobility  and  of  electors  from  the  tiers-etat ;  that  the  obli- 
gation to  residence  should  be  absolute  ;  that  censures  should  be 
pronounced  for  public  scandals ;  that  monastic  vows  should  not 
be  received  at  any  age  under  five-and-twenty  for  men,  and  twenty 
for  women,  ho,.  As  for  questions  of  doctrine  or  bearing  upon  doc- 
trine, a  letter  from  the  queen  regent,  addressed  to  the  pope  in 
1561,  sufficiently  proves  how  nearly  the  two  parties,  notwith- 
standing their  growing  animosities,  had  really  come  to  a  common 
understanding.  In  that  letter  Catherine  required,  most  of  all, 
the  supper  in  both  kinds,  and  the  celebration  of  worship  in  the 
vulgar  tongue.  The  mass  would  be  preserved,  but  without  the 
adoration  of  the  host,  which  amounted  almost  to  an  abandon- 
ment of  transubstantiation.  The  worship  of  images  was  to  be 
renounced,  as  having  been,  unknown  in  the  early  times  of  the 
Church,  and  forbidden  by  God  in  the  second  commandment. 
Baptism  was  to  be  restored  to  its  ancient  simplicity.  All  cere- 
monies, the  apostolic  origin  of  which  should  not  be  sufficiently 
demonstrated,  were  to  be  abolished.  In  fine,  as  the  regent  con- 
cluded with  an  intimation  to  the  pope  of  the  calling  of  the  col- 
loquy of  Poissy,  which  it  was  well  known  would  amount  in  his 
eyes  to  an  invasion  of  his  rights,  that  letter,  notwithstanding  the 
polite  terms  in  which  it  was  couched,  was  very  nearly  tantamount 
to  a  denial  of  the  Roman  supremacy.  We  cannot  know  how  far 
it  exactly  represented  the  queen's  own  sentiments,  but  such  a 
document  evidently  did  not  emanate  either  from  a  mind  or  heart 
very  deeply  Roman  Catholic,  The  more  we  study  the  history 
of  those  times,  the  more  we  become  convinced  that  had  Reforma- 
tion ideas  been  allowed  to  ferment  for  eight  or  ten  years  longer 
without  any  intermingling  of  politics,  and  without  being  com- 
promised by  the  grandees,  with  their  rivalries  and  their  intrigues, 
France  would  have  been  lost  to  Rome,  Catherine  de  Medicis 
may  have  wished  the  St.  Bartholomew  massacre  out  of  hatred 
to  the  Reformed  ;  but  after  having  written  such  a  letter,  she 
could  not  have  wished  it  from  hatred  to  the  Reformation. 

N 


CHAPTEE   II. 

THE    CONFERENCE    OF    POISSY,       GALLICANISM    NOT    ROJLA.NISM. 

Colloquy  of  Poissy — ^The  Chancellor  de  I'Hopital — Did  he  attack  the 
pope  alone — The  Protestants  have  the  ball  at  their  feet — Beza  and 
the  Cardinal  de  Lorraine — Lainez — ^The  praises  he  receives — What 
Gallicanism  is  in  the  eyes  of  the  popes — Philip  II. — The  sympathies 
he  could  reckon  upon  in  France — The  true  country  of  a  priest's  affec- 
tions— ^The  colloquy  concludes  that  the  cup  should  be  conceded  to 
the  laity — The  pope  consults  the  cardinals — Their  unanimous  refusal 
— ^The  matter  referred  to  the  council. 

The  famous  Conference  of  Poissy,  held  in  1561,  has  had  no 
lack  of  authors  to  relate  its  proceedings  ;  we  confine  ourselves  to 
those  parts  only  that  bear  on  the  history  \ve  have  in  hand. 

In  spite  of  the  pope,  but  with  the  advice  of  the  bishops,  it  had 
been  convoked ;  in  spite  both  of  the  pope  and  the  bishops  the 
court  had  required  the  attendance  of  the  Protestants.  At  the 
very  first  sitting  the  Chancellor  de  I'Hopital  appeared  as  the  or- 
gan of  Gallican  sentiments,  and  announced  these  with  a  frank- 
ness, the  very  echoes  of  which  alarmed  and  seemed  to  confound 
E-ome.  The  chancellor  commenced  by  stating  as  a  principle 
what  the  popes  had  never  ceased  to  regard  as  a  heresy,  or  at 
least  as  a  dangerous  and  culpable  error,  that  in  default  of  a  gen- 
eral council,  it  was  at  once  the  right  and  the  duty  of  all  secular 
princes,  each  for  himself,  to  apply  a  remedy  to  the  Church's 
wants  and  defects.  "  And  were  there,"  said  he,  "  at  this  very 
hour  a  general  council  met,  would  that  be  a  reason  for  renounc- 
ing the  present  meeting,  or  any  other  such  as  the  king  might 
appoint  for  the  same  object  ?  No.  A  majority  of  the  council- 
general  would  be  made  up  of  strangers  to  France,  and  hence  in- 
capable of  rightly  appreciating  the  wishes  and  the  wants  of  the 
kingdom.  Have  we  not  seen  in  the  reign  of  Charlemagne,  sev- 
eral councils  met  at  the  same  time  ?  Have  we  not  seen  a  coun- 
cil-general, that  of  Rimini,  where  Arianism  triumphed,  con- 
demned in  France  by  a  synod  presided  over  by  Hilary  of  Poi- 
tiers ?  And  it  was  the  doctrine  of  the  latter  of  these  synods 
which,  in  spite  of  the  council-general,  became  that  of  the  Church." 

Did  the  chancellor  honestly  suppose  that  he  attacked  only  the 


Chap.  II,  15G1.      COLLOQUY    OF  POISSY— GALLICANISM.  291 

pope  ?  Assuredly  the  Protestants  could  not  have  said  anything 
stronger  against  the  Roman  Church  itself;  in  our  general  re- 
marks on  infallibility  we  have  quoted  this  same  fact.  If  it  be 
admitted — and  how  can  it  be  denied  ? — that  the  synod  of  Poi- 
tiers was  in  the  right  as  opposed  to  the  council  of  Rimini,  the 
first  synod  that  meets  may  hope  to  be  justified  in  opposing  the 
council  of  Trent. 

After  such  a  speech  from  the  chancellor,  the  Protestants  had 
the  ball  at  their  feet,  and  they  will  always  have  the  advantage 
in  contending  with  the  Galileans,  however  little  they  may  press 
them.     Accordingly,  notwithstanding  the  eflbrts  of  the  prelates, 
of  the  queen,  and  of  the  chancellor  himself,  to  make  them  appear 
only  in  the  character  of  accused  persons,  the  simple  recital  of 
their  faith  and  of  their  grievances  gave  them  that  of  accusers 
and  judges.     It  was  in  vain  that  Beza,^  who  spoke  for  them, 
softened  the  terms  he  used  ;  it  was  not  in  his  power  to  prevent 
all  that  he  said  from  having  a  fearfully  telling  effect.     Did  he 
speak  of  the  persecutions  inflicted  on  his  brethren  ?     It  was  their 
blood  which  as  he  spoke  cried  aloud  against  the  authors  of  so 
much  carnage,  and  the  victim  is  always  eloquent  when  it  speaks 
in  presence  of  its  butchers.     Did  he  say  nothing  of  those  fright- 
ful scenes  ?    This  only  gave  him  the  air  of  pardoning  them,  only 
made  him  all  the  more  eloquent.     Did  he  attack  the  clergy  ? 
He  then  said  scarcely  more  than  had  been  said  at  the  states  met 
at  Orleans,  and  that  Cardinal  Ferrara,  who  represented  the  pope 
at  the  conference,  was  the  son  of  Lucretia  Borgia.     Did  he  give 
an  exposition  of  his  doctrine  ?      It  was  mingled  throughout  with 
matter  in  which  he  felt  he  had  the  support  of  two-thirds  of  the 
court  and  of  the  parliament.     He  was  listened  to  accordingly 
with  a  degree  of  attention  as  flattering  to  him  as  it  was  calcu- 
lated to  unnerve  the  prelates.     "  I  could  well  have  wished," 
said  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  to  his  intimate  friends,  "  either 
that  this  man  had  been  dumb,  or  that  we  had  been  deaf  I"    But 
Beza  had  spoken;  the  audience  had  not  been  deaf;  a  reply  was 
necessary.     The  cardinal,  to  the  great  annoyance  of  many  of 
the  prelates,  who  thought  it  would  detract  from  his  dignity,  had 
declared  that  he  would  undertake  the  task  ;  but  to  avoid  the 
inconsistency  of  him,  a  cardinal  and  a  prince,  disputing  with  a 
heretic  of  no  note,  he  did  what  many  champions  of  Romanism 
do  to  this  day,  he  laid  down,  ex  professo,  with  great  plausibility 
certain  theories  and  certain  facts,  and  sneered  at  objections,  as 
if  a  single  unresolved  objection  were  not  sufficient  to  subvert  the 

^  They  consisted  of  fourteen  ministers.  On  the  side  of  the  Roman 
Catholics  there  were  five  cardinals,  forty  bishops,  and  a  score  of  doc- 
tors. 


292  HISTORY   OF   THE    COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  IV. 

finest  and  best  constructed  theory.  On  this  we  have  said  enough 
elsewhere  ;  in  presence  of  the  smallest  error  on  any  point  what- 
soever, what  becomes  of  the  most  magnificent  exposition  of  the 
Roman  system  on  the  Church's  authority  and  infalhbility  ?  The 
cardinal  struck  beside  the  point ;  theories  never  can  refute  facts. 
Compelled,  besides,  to  retain  his  footing  on  the  slippery  ground 
of  Gallican  ideas,  he  was  perpetually  hazarding  the  introduction 
of  questions  of  the  utmost  delicacy.  How  maintain  in  one  breath 
.  the  authority  of  the  pope  and  those  liberties  which  the  pope  had 
never  acknowledged  ?  How  speak  in  the  name  of  the  universal 
Church,  when  a  right  had  been  assumed  to  control  the  decrees 
of  a  general  council  ?  How  press  the  necessity  for  there  being 
a  chief  in  the  Church,  when  all  the  world  knew  that  that  meet- 
ing had  been  called  in  the  face  of  his  disapproval  ?  And  all 
that  we  say  of  the  famous  colloquy  of  Poissy  may  be  said  of  the 
famous  assembly  of  the  clergy  under  Lewis  XIV.  Like  the  car- 
dinal of  Lorraine  in  1561,  Bossuet  in  1G82,  required  more  talent' 
and  tact  to  avoid  the  appearance  of  demolishing  E-ome,  than  he 
had  ever  shewn  in  attacking  Geneva. 

But  at  Poissy  there  was  a  man  to  whom  Gallicanism  was 
hardly  less  odious  than  the  Reformation.  This  was  the  irascible 
Lainez,  soon  afterwards  general  of  the  Jesuits,  and  at  that  time 
attached  to  the  cardinal  of  Ferrara,  the  pope's  legate  at  the 
court  of  Charles  IX.  To  the  calling  of  the  colloquy  none  had 
been  more  bitterly  opposed  than  Lainez.  He  groaned  in  spirit 
while  attending  its  sittings,  and  even  the  utter  defeat  of  the 
Calvinist  doctors  could  not  have  made  him  digest  the  affront  of 
an  assembly  having  been  held  without  the  pope,  and  in  spite  of 
the  pope.  At  last  he  made  an  impassioned  speech,  but  it  was 
directed  against  the  queen  and  the  court  still  more  than  against 
Beza.  The  Protestants  escaped  with  merely  having  to  hear 
themselves  called  foxes,  seryents,  and  aj^es  ;  the  court  was  cen- 
sured at  great  length,  and  point  by  point,  for  having  made  a 
breach  in  the  Church  by  meddling  with  matters  in  which  it  had 
no  concern.  This  was  heard  in  silence.  What,  indeed,  could 
have  been  said  in  reply  without  producing  an  open  rupture  ? 
The  court  had  further  to  submit  to  hear  the  praises  lavished  by 
Pius  IV.  on  his  fervid  champion,  while  he  threatened  to  excom- 
municate the  chancellor,  and  almost  openly  undertook  the  defence 
of  one  Tanquerel,  who  had  been  condemned  by  the  parliament 
for  having  maintained  that  the  pope  might  deprive  of  their  do- 
minions princes  that  should  rebel  against  the  papal  authority. 
In  short,  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  Roman  unity,  of  which  so 
terrible  an  argument  has  since  been  made,  could  not  have  much 
impressed  the  anti-Romanists  of  that  period.     Even  although 


Chap.  II.  1501.     THE   GALLICANS  ACCOUNTED  HERETICS.  293 

the  tentative  proceeding's  at  Trent  liad  not  demonstrated  liow 
little  reality  there  was  in  it,  even  in  matters  oi"  faith,  what  im- 
portance could  have  been  attached  to  it  by  people  so  entirely 
disagreed  with  respect  to  the  constitution,  the  seat,  the  very  es- 
sence of  that  power  which  was  said  to  be  charged  with  the  es- 
tablishment and  preservation  of  this  boasted  unity  ?  Could  that 
very  disagreement  be  viewed  as  a  thing  beyond  the  sphere  of 
matters  of  faith  ?  Here  we  find  again,  only  exhibited  in  action, 
all  the  arguments  of  our  first  book.  On  all  occasions  on  which 
the  popes  have  thought  they  might  call,  or  allow  others  to  call, 
Gallicanism  a  heresy,  they  have  done  it ;  on  all  occasions  when 
it  has  suited  them  to  excite  any  hatred  against  France  or  the 
French,  it  has  been  as  heretics  that  they  have  denounced  them 
to  fanatical  nations.  In  Italy,  in  Spain,  in  the  Spanish  and 
Portuguese  colonies,  heretic  and  Frenchman  have  been  synony- 
mous terms.  Some  of  the  heroes  of  St.  Bartholomew  went  and 
settled  in  America.  Smeared  as  they  were  wdth  Protestant 
blood,  Avhat  were  they  in  the  eyes  of  the  ultramontanists  of  the 
New  World  ?  Why,  nothing  but  heretics.  Philip  V.  mounted 
the  Spanish  throne.  He  had  taken  part  in  the  dragonnades 
against  the  French  Reformed  ;  -  he  appears  in  Spain  under  the 
auspices  of  the  monarch  who  commanded  those  dragoonings  and 
who  believed  himself  the  most  zealous  Roman  Catholic  in  Eu- 
rope, the  Church's  first-born,  a  second  Theodosius,  in  fine,  as  w^as 
said  of  him  by  Bossuet.  For  all  that  he  was  but  a  heretic  in 
the  eyes  of  his  new  subjects.  He  goes  to  Naples,  and  lo  I  the 
blood  of  St.  Januarius  refuses  to  liquefy,  because,  say  the  priests, 
the  miracle  cannot  take  place  where  a  heretic  reigns.  Even  in 
the  wars  of  our  own  age,  down  to  1823,  wdien  official  France 
was  more  Roman  Catholic  than  ever,  but  still  Gallican,  it  was 
on  a  sentiment  of  religious  horror  still  more  than  of  national  in- 
dependence, that  Spain  rested  her  resistance  to  French  inter- 
vention. 

To  return  to  the  colloquy,  it  was  in  Spain  also  that  the  gov- 
ernment and  the  clergy  were  most  agreed  in  blaming  its  authors. 
Nor  did  Philip  confine  himself  to  censure.  He  was  deeply  in- 
terested in  the  divisions  that  distracted  France,  and  had  long 
desired  to  interfere  in  them.  Hence  that  fatal  intervention 
which  was  to  end  in  the  follies  and  the  horrors  of  the  League. 
He  began  by  complaining  of  the  dangers  which,  as  he  alleged, 
threatened  his  own  states,  from  the  vicinity  of  a  kingdom  where 
so  little  regard  was  shewn  to  the  interests  of  the  faith  ;  he  should 
take  good  care  that  after  having  been  at  such  pains  to  root  out  the 
last  remains  of  heresy  from  Spain  he  should  not  be  compelled  to 
see  it  flourishing  at  his  own  gates.     He  gave  no  farther  explana- 


294  HISTORY  OF  THE    COUNCIL   OF   TRENT,  Book  IV. 

tion,  but  enough  was  known  to  make  his  meaning  sufficiently 
understood.  Two  months  previous  to  the  colloquy  there  had 
been  seized  at  Orleans  a  sort  of  petition  presented  to  him  by  the 
clergy  of  France,  and  that  document,  notwithstanding  the  am- 
biguity of  its  terms,  pointed  clearly  enough  to  the  necessity  for 
an  armed  intervention.  Although  the  clergy,  as  a  body,  were 
not  guilty  of  complicity,  so  many  persons  were  found  compro- 
mised by  it  that  the  government  felt  it  necessary  to  put  a  stop  to 
further  investigation ;  it  was  fain  to  wink  at  what  it  had  not 
the  power  to  punish.  Philip  II.,  accordingly,  was  assured  of 
powerful  sympathies  ;  of  this  sufficient  proofs  appeared  in  the 
course  of  time.  With  the  Romish  clergy  the  interests  of  the 
Church  and  of  Home  have  necessarily  the  precedence  of  those  of 
their  native  country.  It  is  only  at  the  expense  of  his  consistency, 
and  at  the  hazard  of  seeing  himself  placed  in  the  falsest  positions, 
that  a  priest  can  be  a  good  Frenchman,  a  good  German,  and,  in 
general,  a  good  citizen.  Be  this  happy  inconsistency  frequent  or 
rare,  that  is  a  delicate  question  which  we  are  not  called  to  ex- 
amine ;  the  answer  to  it,  moreover,  must  vary  greatly,  according 
to  times  and  places.  There  are  priests,  thank  God,  who  are  also 
good  citizens,  as  there  are  priests  also  who  are  tolerant ;  but 
just  as  these  last  are  not  and  cannot  be  so  without  disobedience 
to  their  Church,  so  also,  the  only  consistent  and  finished  priest 
is  he  who  has  no  country  but  Rome  and  no  sovereign  but  the 
pope. 

The  bishops  at  the  colloquy,  meanwhile,  were  fain  to  grant 
something,  or,  if  not  inclined  to  do  so,  felt  at  least  that  it  would 
seem  strange  to  have  called  the  Protestants  together,  all  whose 
opinions,  be  it  remembered,  they  perfectly  knew,  without  mak- 
ing any  concession  to  them.  The  supper  in  both  kinds  had  the 
double  advantage  of  not  being  a  point  of  doctrine  and  of  exciting 
the  greatest  interest.  The  council  had  not  decided  the  question  ; 
in  consenting  to  its  adjournment  it  had  given  room  to  believe 
that  it  was  not  irrevocably  decided  in  the  Roman  sense.  It  was 
resolved,  therefore,  that  the  pope  should  be  asked  to  yield  on 
that  point.  Some  of  the  bishops  even  thought  that  it  was  com- 
petent for  the  king  to  regulate  the  matter  by  an  edict ;  but  it 
Avas  deemed  more  prudent  not  to  commit  themselves  to  so  mis- 
chievous a  step. 

The  pope  replied  that  that  request  had  been  already  made 
to  him  by  the  emperor,  that,  personally,  he  would  have  found 
no  great  difficulty  in  consenting  to  it,  but  that  the  cardinals 
had  almost  with  one  mind  advised  him  to  reject  it.  Notwith- 
standing, out  of  regard  for  France,  he  would  consult  them  once 
more. 


Chap.  II.  15G1.     THE   SUPPER   IN   BOTH    KINDS    REFUSED.  295 

A  consistory  was  held  accordingly  (lOlh  November),  and  not 
only  was  the  request  refused,  hut  it  was  made  the  occasion  of 
the  severest  recriminations  against  the  country  from  which  it 
had  come.  All  that  the  pope  thought  the  cardinals  said.  Court, 
parliament,  and  bishops,  were  openly  accused  of  heresy.  The 
Cardinal  della  (^ueva,  who  had  nearly  been  elected  pope,  ven- 
tured to  say  that  if  ever  the  pope  consented  to  such  a  request  he 
himself  would  go  and  supplicate  for  mercy  on  the  steps  of  St. 
Peter's,  thus  intimating  that  even  the  pope  would  in  his  eyes  be 
a  heretic  were  he  to  have  a  hand  in  such  things.  The  Cardinal 
of  St.  Angelo  added,  that  because  the  French  were  sick,  that  was 
no  reason  for  giving  them,  under  the  guise  of  medicine,  a  cupful 
of  poison.  And  when  the  ambassador  from  France  asked  him 
if  the  bishops  of  the  first  ages  had  then  been  poisoners,  seeing 
they  gave  the  cup  to  all,  another  replied  that  the  cup  would 
really  have  been  poisoned  for  whoever  should  partake  of  it  in 
the  belief  that  it  Avas  necessary,  since  this  was  to  deny,  against 
the  opinion  of  the  Church,  that  the  entire  body  of  the  Saviour 
was  in  the  bread. 

Notwithstanding  this  unanimity,  the  pope  hesitated  ;  he  pon- 
dered with  alarm  the  consequences  that  might  possibly  follow 
his  refusal.  ,  First,  he  would  fain  have  had  the  ambassador  with- 
draw his  request ;  but  that  minister  having  rephed  that  this  was 
beyond  his  power,  he  then  thought  of  applying  for  advice  to  the 
council.  Not,  said  he,  that  he  did  not  believe  himself  fully 
competent  to  pronounce  on  the  question,  but  since  the  council 
was  about  to  open,  why  should  he  withdraw  from  its  cognizance 
a  matter  so  closely  allied  to  the  questions  which  it  would  have 
to  study?  Pius  promised,  moreover,  to  take  steps  for  its  being 
among  the  first  points  to  be  submitted  to  examination. 


CHAPTER    III. 

(1562.) 

SESSIONS  XVII.-XX.  DISPUTES  ABOUT  THE  AUTHORITY  OF  THE  LE- 
GATES AND  INDEX  EXPURGATORIUS.  TREACHEROUS  SAFE-CON- 
DUCT.      DmXE  RIGHT  OF  BISHOPS. 

Bad  feeling  on  the  part  of  the  court  of  France  —  Re-opening  of  the 
council— Seve>teenth  Session — Ambiguous  decree — False  reasoning 
— Precautions  taken — Proponentibus  legatis — Question  about  forbid- 
den books — Historical  review — Gelasius,  Leo  X.,  and  Paul  lY. — Em- 
barrassment and  puerilities — A  tnonstroxisVihevty — Absolute  enslave- 
ment— An  illusory  appeal  made  to  the  Protestants — Eighteenth  Ses- 
sion— The  safe-conduct  and  the  Inquisition — Spanish  Gallicanism — 
The  question  of  residence  taken  up  anew — It  becomes  complicated 
and  envenomed — Voting  upon  it — Reference  to  the  pope — Murmurs 
— Pius  IV.  dreads  pronouncing  upon  it — Momentary  calm — Several 
questions  of  detail  examined — Abuses  pointed  out — These  none  durst 
touch  without  the  consent  of  the  pope — His  evasive  reply  on  the 
question  of  the  Divine  Right — Nineteenth  Session — Xo  result — Pius 
IV.  conceives  a  dislike  for  the  council — AVould  fain  dismiss  it  or  have 
it  entirely  under  his  hand  —  Jealousies  among  the  members  —  The 
pope's  pensionaries — Offers  of  money  to  the  king  of  France — Arrival 
of  the  French  ambassadors  —  Satirical  harangue  —  Dissimulation — 
Another  Session  (Twentieth)  without  result. 

Notwithstanding  this,  the  court  of  France  was  less  disposed 
than  ever  either  to  send  its  bishops  or  to  acknowledge  a  council 
in  which  they  should  not  have  had  a  place.  By  dint  of  chican- 
ery and  ill-nature  it  had  come  at  last  to  put  legal  right,  one 
might  almost  say  reason,  on  the  side  of  the  court  of  Rome, 
seeing  that  for  a  year  the  pope  had  been  doing  his  best  to  bring 
the  council  into  a  state  which  might  authorize  its  being  opened. 
"Whatever  were  in  reality  his  feelings  and  his  fears,  he  could  no 
longer  be  reproached  either  with  neghgence  or  tergiversations. 
The  sending  of  six  legates  from  Rome  sufficiently  shewed  that 
he  had  no  longer  any  wish  to  draw  back.  In  consequence  of  the 
pains  he  had  taken,  near  a  hundred  bishops  were  at  Trent,  that 
is  to  say,  a  third  more  than  had  appeared  at  any  of  the  old  ses- 
sions. In  this  number  there  were,  no  doubt,  many  Italians  ;  but 
it  was  no  longer  the  pope's  fault  if  those  belonging  to  other  coun- 
tries persisted  in  refusing  to  come.     He  thought,  therefore,  that 


Chap.  III.  1562.  THE   COUNCIL   REOPENED.  29Y 

after  waiting  for  eight  months,  he  might  safely  undertake  the 
responsibility  of  opening  it,  and  it  was  decided  accordingly  that 
the  first  session  should  take  place  on  the  18th  January,  15G2. 

The  drawing  up  of  the  decree  for  the  opening  proved  a  still 
more  thorny  afiair  than  that  of  its  convocation  had  been.  Could 
the  meeting  evade  explaining  its  real  character  ?  Surely  it  must 
present  itself  to  the  world  either  as  a  new  council  or  as  a  contin- 
uation of  the  old.  The  Spanish  bishops  were  strongly  in  favour 
of  the  second  alternative  ;  nay,  several  threatened  to  withdraw 
were  there  any  concession,  or  appearance  of  concession,  on  that 
point.  The  Italians  were  no  less  unwilling  to  yield  ;  but  they 
were  as  much  aware  as  the  pope  was  that  any  explicit  state- 
ment would  call  forth  the  most  dangerous  protests  from  Germany 
and  France.  Means  were  still  found,  accordingly,  for  leaving 
the  matter  undecided.  Nothing  is  impossible  in  diplomacy  ;  but 
it  was.  a  sorry  commencement  to  have  too  little  courage  for  say- 
mg  what  all  were  unanimous  in  thinking.  "  Is  it  your  pleasure 
that  the  holy  council  of  Trent,  cecumenical  and  general,  be  cele- 
brated, commencing  from  this  day,  all  suspension  being  removed, 
according  to  the  form  and  tenor  of  our  holy  father  the  pope's 
letters,  and  that  there  shall  be  brought  under  discussion,  proper 
order  being  observed,  what  shall  seem  expedient  as  a  remedy 
for  present  evils  ?"  &c.  Thus,  all  suspension  being  removed, 
which  assumes,  it  is  true,  a  convocation  anterior  to  the  present ; 
but  it  is  not  said  that  that  convocation  had  produced  anything. 
Reference  is  made  to  the  bull,  but  that  we  have  seen  said  no- 
thing more  precise.  All  this,  humanly  speaking,  is  very  excusable. 
To  have  done  otherwise  would  have  been  to  subvert  all.  But 
this  mendacious  decree  is  not  the  less  associated  with  those  who, 
we  are  told,  were  holy  and  infallible  persons  ;  the  council  not 
the  less  gives  itself,  in  that  as  well  as  in  the' other  decrees,  the 
titles  of  holy,  (Ecumenical,  and  legitimately  assembled,  with  the 
assistance  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 

The  opening  then  took  place.  A  hundred  and  ten  prelates  in 
full  costume,  accompanied  by  their  officers,  their  priests,  and 
their  doctors,  solemnly  took  possession  of  the  cathedral,  amid  the 
sound  of  artillery  and  of  steeple  bells,  and  between  two  lines  of 
soldiers.  No  ambassador  had  as  yet  arrived  ;  a  circumstance 
that  greatly  disappointed  Pallavicini.  "  It  looked,"^  says  he, 
"as  if  the  theatre  on  which  such  fine  things  were  passing,  had 
not  all  the  splendour  that  it  required,  as  long  as  the  representa- 
tives of  the  kings  did  not  figure  there."'  But  from  quite  a 
different  cause  than  a  defect  in  external  splendour,  there  still 
prevailed,  in  fact,  a  painful  sense  of  isolation  and  weakness. 

*  Book  XV,  ch.  xvi. 
N* 


298  HISTORY   OF  THE   COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book.  IV. 

The  number  was  above  a  hundred ;  but  better  had  there  been 
only  fifty,  had  there  been  among  these  only  a  dozen  of  French 
and  Germans.  Yet  with  all  tliese  reasons  for  humility  and  fear, 
the  opening  sermon  displayed  as  much  hardihood  as  ever.  Gas- 
pard  del  Fosso,  archbishop  of  Reggio,  had  chosen  for  his  subject 
the  authority  of  the  Church  and  the  power  of  councils.  The  bish- 
ops had  the  satisfaction  of  hearing  it  declared,  as  in  the  too  fa- 
mous sermon  of  Musso,  that  the  Holy  Spirit  was  about  to  speak 
by  their  mouth.  And  as  for  the  Church's  authority,  "  Is  it  not  it," 
said  he,  among  other  reasons,  "  that  substituted  the  Lord's  day  for 
the  Sabbath,  whicli  was  instituted  by  God  himself  ?  Did  it  not 
aboHsh  circumcision,  also  instituted  by  God  ?"  "Whence  it  must 
be  concluded,  little  room  as  there  was  for  such  reasoning,  not 
that  the  Church  is  equal  to  the  Word  of  God,  but  that  it  is 
much  superior.  If  this  were  the  place  to  reply,  we  might  ob- 
serve further,  that  the  Sabbath  and  circumcision  were  practices, 
not  doctrines  ;  that  these  practices  have  been  not  abolished,  but 
replaced,  the  one  by  the  Lord's  day,  the  other  by  baptism  ;  that 
this  substitution  was  the  work  of  the  Apostles  ;  that,  were  it 
even  the  Church's  doing,  the  right  of  modifying  practices  by  no 
means  draws  along  with  it  that  of  teaching  new  doctrines.  Did 
the  abolition  of  the  Sabbath,  and  of  circumcision,  date  as  so 
many  Romanist  ideas  do,  from  the  tenth,  nay,  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury, should  we  be  bound  to  subscribe  to  it  ?  How  prove  the 
authority  of  the  Church  by  decisions  which  we  should  be  author- 
ized to  reject,  did  they  emanate  only  from  the  Church  ?  The 
argument,  nevertheless,  is  in  great  favour,  down  to  our  own  days 
even,  in  the  writings  of  Romanist  controversialists. 

A  single  word  which  had  found  its  way  into  the  decree,  was 
destined  afterwards  to  excite  stormy  discussions. 

The  bishops  that  had  arrived  first  at  Trent,  had  for  several 
months  enjoyed  opportunities  of  visiting  each  other,  and  having 
a  mutual  interchange  of  ideas.  From  such  strictly  private  de- 
liberations, there  issued  certain  projected  decrees,  prepared  for 
being  submitted  to  the  council  when  fully  constituted,  but  not 
all  equally  accordant  with  the  views  of  the  pope.  The  legates 
were  not  much  afraid  that  the  council  would  adopt  them  ;  but 
it  was  of  consequence,  further,  that  they  should  not  even  be 
brought  under  deliberation  ;  and  of  still  more  consequence  that 
even  as  respected  decrees  perfectly  innocuous,  a  check  should  be 
put  at  once  to  the  perilous  course  of  entertaining  individual  or 
collective  propositions.  Nevertheless,  to  have  it  decreed  that  the 
legates  alone  should  have  the  right  of  introducing  subjects  for 
discussion,  was  impossible  ;  all  but  the  Italians  would  have  pro- 
tested, and  the  Italians  themselves  would  not  all  have  subscribed 


Chap.  III.  1502.     INTERDICTION    OF    HERETICAL    BOOKS.  299 

it.  An  atlcmpt  was  made,  accordingly,  to  have  inserted  in  the 
decree  for  the  opcnin<r,  at  least  the  germ  of  tlie  right  which  it 
was  aiitici})atcd  would  he  so  necessary.  The  decrees  had  hith- 
erto run  simply  thus,  ''  The  holy  council,  the  legates  of  the  apos- 
tolic see  presiding."  This  was  already  a  great  deal ;  time  was 
when  we  have  seen  what  pains  were  taken  to  elude  the  question 
of  this  presidency  being  honorary  merely,  or  of  divine  right ; 
indispensable,  or  not  indi.?pensable,  to  the  council's  legitimacy. 
This  time,  it  was  not  sim-ply  2Jrcsidi?ig,  but  "  proposing  and  pre- 
siding."^ The  terms  did  not  thereby  say  that  it  was  for  tliem 
aIo?ie  to  propose,  but  they  might  thus  be  interpreted  ;  and  we 
shall  see  ere  long  that  they  were  placed  there  solely  with  that 
view.  \Yas  this,  too,  a  piece  of  diplomacy  ?  We  are  of  opinion 
that  even  among  diplomatists,  it  would  stand  a  great  chance  of 
being  called  something  very  different.  The  bishop  of  Grenada, 
and  three  other  Spaniards,  said  as  much  in  the  face  of  the  legates. 

This  right  of  proposing  did  not  fiiil  to  create  embarrassment. 
As  the  resumption  of  the  plan  of  procedure  in  1551  was  not,  for 
the  moment,  to  be  dreamt  of,  seeing  that  that  would  have  been 
to  cut  short,  in  fact,  the  question  as  to  the  continuation,  the 
grand  afiair  was  to  find  out  some  subject  altogether  new,  strictly 
associated  with  nothing  else,  and  which  might  figure  equally 
well  at  the  beginning,  middle,  or  end  of  a  council.  The  legates 
proposed  then  to  inquire  what  should  be  done  with  resjDcct  to 
books  forbidden,  or  to  be  forbidden  ;  a  vague  question,  which 
could  only  lead,  as  happened  in  fact,  to  an  insignificant  decree. 
"What  could  the  assembly  be  asked  to  do  ?  Not  surely  itself  to 
draw  up  a  catalogue  of  the  books  to  be  condemned  ?  That  was 
impracticable  ;  at  the  most  it  could  appoint  a  committee  to  do 
so.  Not  to  fix  the  rules  according  to  which  they  should  be  con- 
demned ;  for  it  was  clear  that  every  book  that  contradicted  the 
decisions  of  the  Church,  and  especially  those  of  the  council  itself, 
was,  from  that  alone,  of  a  nature  to  be  interdicted.  Not  to  de- 
cree that  the  pope  and  bishops  should  have  an  eye  directed  to 
all  works  that  might  be  published  ;  for  their  attention  had  long 
been  thus  directed,  and  the  Inquisition,  moreover,  left  them 
nothing  to  do.  Thus  what  was  presented  to  the  council,  be- 
came a  subject  of  conversation  rather  than  of  discussion  ;  and 
more  than  one  bishojD  thought  it  strange  that  an  assembly  so 
numerous,  brought  together  with  so  much  dilKculty,  and  opened 
so  tardily,  should  be  asked  to  spend  its  time  in  any  such  manner. 

The  prohibiting  of  certain  books  began,  like  all  abuses,  with 
measures  at  once  wise  and  legitimate.     It  is  evident  that  a  pas- 
tor does  no  more  than  his  duty  in  pointing  out  to  his  flock  such 
*  Proponcntibiis  Sedis  apostolicac  legatis,  ct  prcesidentibus. 


300  HISTORY   OF  THE  COUNCIL  OF  TRENT.  Book  IV. 

writings  as  appear  to  him  dangerous  ;  but  it  is  also  evident  that 
his  right  cannot  go  so  far  as  to  interdict  them  otherv^ase  than 
by  an  appeal  to  the  conscience  of  the  readers.  Such  was  the 
interdiction  which  for  a  long  period  was  alone  in  use.  Towards 
the  year  500,  we  see  Pope  G-elasius  publish  a  first  general  index 
of  heretical  books,  or  books  reputed  to  be  heretical ;  but  he  merely 
gave  a  list  of  them.  The  faithful  were  to  know  that  the  Church 
condemned  them ;  that  was  all.  By  little  and  little  we  find 
threats  appear,  but  still  nothing  very  offensive  in  these ;  it  was 
merely  observed,  that  he  who  reads  a  heretical  book,  knowing  it 
to  be  heretical,  commits  the  sin  of  one  who  voluntarily  exposes 
himself  to  a  temptation.  Towards  the  twelfth  century,  the  cus- 
tom was  introduced  of  anathematizing  at  one  blow  the  heretic 
and  his  works  ;  the  interdiction  is  then  more  severe ;  still  it  is 
only  an  interdiction.  Finally,  it  becomes  more  and  more  severe, 
and  by  little  and  little  excommunication  is  brought  in  to  sanc- 
tion it.  Thus,  in  excommunicating  Luther,  Leo  X.  pronounces 
the  same  penal  sentence  against  those  who  should  read  his  books. 
At  the  epoch  of  the  council,  it  was  the  ordinary  form  of  that  sort 
of  condemnations. 

Paul  IV.,  whose  violent  proceedings  we  have  relatea,  had  par- 
ticularly distinguished  himself  in  this  desperate  warfare  between 
Roman  Catholicism  and  liberty.  A  vast  index,  drawn  up  under 
his  eye  by  the  Inquisition  of  the  Roman  States,  has  come  down 
to  us  as  a  curious  monument  of  the  papal  despotism,  or,  if  you 
will,  dotage.  As  little  disposed  to  respect  his  predecessors  as 
the  secular  princes,  and  without  disquieting  himself  about  the 
breach  thus  made  in  his  own  claims  to  infallibility,  Paul  con- 
demns without  ceremony  works  printed  in  Italy,  at  Rome  itself, 
under  the  eyes  and  with  the  approbation  of  the  popes  ;  for  ex- 
ample, the  Annotations  of  Erasmus  on  the  New  Testament,  ap- 
proved by  Leo  X.  in  1518.  According  to  Pallavicini,  not]iing 
more  simple  :  "  Is  it  to  be  supposed  that  the  pope,  in  signing  a 
brief  of  that  nature,  can  always  examine  writings  personally,  or 
by  very  capable  persons  ?  Why  should  not  time  make  one  dis- 
tinguishf  upon  a  second  reading,  what  had  not  been  perceived  at 
the  first  ?"^  All  well ;  but  then  we  would  add,  why  may  not 
time  enable  him  to  perceive,  on  a  third  reading,  the  contrary  of 
what  he  believed  he  had  seen  at  the  second  ?  With  this  rea- 
soning, just  as  it  is  in  itself,  the  pope  is  in  the  same  condition  of 
self-correction  and  of  error,  as  the  first  doctor  you  meet ;  there 
may  always  be  an  appeal  from  the  pope  who  is  ill-informed,  to 
the  pope  who  is  better  informed.  It  is  Gallican,  but  hardly 
orthodox  reasoning.     Be  that  as  it  may,  Paul  IV.  did  not  look 

'  Book  XV.  ch.  xviii. 


Chap.  III.  15f)2.  DELUGE   OF   ANATHEMAS.  IJOl 

SO  narrowly  into  it ;  he  went  straight  forward — so  mucli  the 
worse  for  tliose  who  stood  in  his  way,  though  popes  hke  himself 
Among  the  condemned  authors,  his  Index  signals  out,  not  only 
heretics  properly  so  called,  but  all  who  had  raised  the  smallest 
doubt  on  the  rights  and  pretensions  of  Home.  Had  he  not  called 
heretics,  in  full  consistory,  those  who  had  wished  to  remind  liim 
of  the  promise  he  had  given  in  conclave,  not  to  appoint  more 
than  four  cardinals  at  once  ?  There  was  heresy,  according  to 
him,  in  thinking  that  the  pope  could  be  bound,  even  by  an  oath  ; 
in  what  an  abyss  of  heresy  were  not  those  then  plunged,  in  his 
eyes,  who  dared  to  speak  of  placing  any  other  limits  on  that  pow- 
er, a  power  more  absolute  than  that  of  God  himself,  for  none  has 
ever  said  that  God  was  not  bound  by  his  promises,  or  could  have 
the  thought  of  violating  them  ?  Further,  in  that  same  Index,  all 
the  works  published,  or  that  might  be  published  by  sixty  print- 
ers mentioned  by  name,  and,  generally,  all  books  that  should 
issue  from  the  presses  of  a  printer  guilty  of  having  once  printed 
a  heretical  book,  were  anathematized  in  the  lump.  In  a  w^ord, 
there  was  not  perhaps  a  single  man  in  Europe,  that  could  read, 
who  did  not  find  himself  caught,  in  one  way  or  another,  in  that 
decree's  anathemas  ;  and  the  only  penalty  indicated  for  all  these 
cases,  however  different,  was  excommunication.  Were  we  wrong 
in  speaking  of  dotage  ? 

This  decree,  accordingly,  had  been  very  much  criticised  even 
at  Rome.  Sensible  persons  thought  this  deluge  of  excommuni- 
cations much  less  fitted  to  keep  the  population  of  Christendom  in 
awe  than  to  familiarize  them  with  a  punishment  which  is  felt 
to  be  nothing  the  moment  it  ceases  to  be  the  most  terrible  of  all. 
Thus  the  council  w^as  led  at  the  very  first  to  occupy  itself  with 
the  measures  of  Paul  IV.  The  members  were  agreed  in  blaming 
their  severity,  but  they  knew  not  how  to  meddle  with  them.  Of 
all  the  books  condemned  by  that  pope,  there  was  not  one  which 
an  assembly  of  bishops  could  consider  as  altogether  blameless  ; 
and  if  there  was  a  certain  number  M'liich  they  would  have  pre- 
ferred not  seeing  anathematized,  there  was  none,  nevertheless, 
which  they  could  venture  to  rescue  from  the  curse  pronomiced 
on  them.  Is  it  not  better,  then,  said  Peter  Contarini,  bishop 
of  Bafla,  is  it  not  better  to  forbid  a  thousand  works  which  do 
not  deserve  it,  than  to  permit  the  reading  of  one  that  does  ? 
"  Ah  I"  he  added,  with  great  simplicity,  "  are  books  so  rare,  then, 
that  we  should  be  so  much  alarmed  about  interdicting  a  few  too 
many  I"  Pallavicini  is  inclined  to  think  this  opinion  sin^^ular. 
Let  us  be  thankful  he  says  nothing  worse,  for  it  is  rare  to  fnid 
him  not  admiring  the  things  he  relates  in  proportion  as  they  are 
strange.     But  if  this  opinion  be  singular,  Avhat  other  term  shall 


802  ■        HISTORY   OF  THE  COUNCIL   OF    TRENT.  Book  IV. 

we  apply  to  that  of  the  historian  himself  in  admitting  that  Paul 
went  too  far,  yet  persisting  in  ascribing  to  the  Church  on  this 
point  a  power  without  limits  and  without  control  ?  And  if  we 
mention  here  the  light  in  which  he  viewed  this  matter,  it  is  not 
because  he  supported  it.  Of  what  consequence  is  that  to  us  ? 
It  is  because  it  has  never  ceased,  and  never  can  cease  to  be  that 
of  the  Roman  Church.  It  is  not  many  years  since  there  fell 
from  the  pretended  chair  of  St.  Peter,  those  words  which  so 
many  persons  would  now  fam  obliterate  from  men's  memories  : 
"  The  liberty  of  the  press  is  a  monstrous  liberty,  which  can 
never  be  held  in  sufficient  horror." ^ 

In  consenting  to  the  revision  of  the  Index,  the  pope  had  first 
taken  care  that  no  prejudice  should  be  done  to  his  rights.  Con- 
sidering the  prohibitions  that  emanated  from  Paul  IV.  as  still  in 
force,  he  had  sent  to  the  bishops  of  the  council  permission  to 
read  the  books  which  that  pope  had  noted  as  heretical.  This 
was  generally  deemed  a  slur  on  the  council's  dignity.  People 
wondered  very  reasonably  at  its  being  assumed  that  bishops  le- 
gitimately assembled  for  fixing  the  Church's  faith  and  discipline, 
should  further  require  the  pope's  special  permission  to  read  the 
books  they  might  have  to  condemn.  Under  polite  and  gracious 
forms  it  amounted  to  the  most  slavish  subjection  that  the  Holy 
See  had  as  yet  imposed  on  any  council. 

We  have  seen  the  difficulties  started  under  Julius  III.  about 
the  attendance  of  the  Protestants.  As  this  question  could  not 
fail  to  be  resumed,  the  legates  had  fancied  that  they  could  fmd, 
in  the  affair  of  the  Index,  the  means  of  depriving  it  of  all  that 
was  most  embarrassing.  They  proposed,  therefore,  that  they 
should  be  called,  not  as  divines  and  representatives  of  the  Ref- 
ormation, but  as  authors  interested  in  the  framing  of  the  cata- 
logue, and  who  had  a  claim  to  be  heard  before  being  condemned. 

Nothing  could  be  more  illusory,  if  indeed  we  can  call  that  illu- 
sory which  is  too  clear  to  deceive  anybody.  Protestant  writings 
were  too  openly  heretical  to  make  the  asking  of  explanations  from 
their  authors  anything  mote  than  an  idle  ceremony.  These 
Protestants,  therefore,  would  not  come  ;  but  this  being  just  what 
was  wanted,  the  application  for  a  safe-conduct,  when  made  anew 
by  the  emperor,  met  on  this  occasion  with  no  difficulty.  Only 
tM'o  bishops  desired  that  this  curious  condition  should  be  put 
into  it,  that  the  heretics  should  come,  not  to  dispute,  but  to  be 
converted. 

Accordingly,  never  yet  had  there  been  so  meaningless  a  de- 
cree as  that  read  in  the  eighteenth  session,  on  the  26th  of  Feb- 
ruary.    Many  prelates  were  ashamed  of  it ;  they  even   asked 

^  See  ante,  p.  104. 


Chap.  ITT.  1562.    THE  SAFE-CONDUCT  RENDERED  OF  NO  AVAIL.        303 

themselves  whether  the  title  of  decree  could  be  given  to  the 
mere  auouncemeiit  that  a  commission  had  been  appointed,  and 
that  it  would  receive  with  pleasure  those  who  might  think  that 
they  had  explanations  to  give.  Moreover,  however  insignificant 
the  result  of  the  deliberations,  these  had  been  very  long,  and  it 
was  only  with  much  ado  that  it  had  been  found  possible  to  have 
the  decree  ready  on  the  appointed  day.  All  the  members  wished 
to  speak  ;  all  wished  to  give  token  of  their  presence  on  that  thea- 
tre which  most  of  them,  mere  priests  at  the  time  of  the  old  ses- 
sions, had  hitherto  only  hailed  from  a  distance.  When  they 
came  to  the  discussion  of  the  text,  the  legates  were  obliged  to 
lay  it  down  as  a  rule,  that  it  should  be  past  before  the  meeting 
rose,  even  although  they  should  devote  the  whole  night  to  it. 
It  was  the  best  way  to  have  done  with  it ;  but,  at  the  same 
time,  it  did  not  flatter  the  assembly  with  much  prospect  of  in- 
dependence. 

The  safe-conduct,  too,  which  to  all  appearance  was  to  be  of 
use  to  nobody,  cost  many  days'  labour.  The  Spaniards  ex- 
claimed against  the  abuse  that  might  be  made  of  it  in  escaping 
from  the  rigours  of  the  Inquisition.  An  accused  person  might 
ask  leave  to  get  out  of  prison  for  the  purpose  of  justifying  him- 
self before  the  council.  Was  he  to  obtain  this  leave,  then,  at 
the  risk  of  seeing  him  go,  not  to  Trent,  but  to  Geneva  ?  They 
came  to  an  understanding  about  it  at  last,  thanks  to  a  word  fur- 
tively introduced  at  the  end  of  the  safe-conduct.  What  an  in- 
fernal mockery  !  See,  in  the  first  place,  in  the  decree,  the  most 
pressing  invitations.  It  is  by  the  bowels  of  the  divine  mercy,^ 
that  the  council  exhorts  the  heretics  to  come  to  Trent,  to  open 
their  hearts,  to  throw  themselves  into  the  arms  of  that  tender 
mother  who  is  burning  with  a  desire  to  pardon  them.^  Next, 
see  in  the  safe-conduct  itself,  four  large  pages  filled  with  the 
most  minute  securities  ;  only  the  heretics  of  Germany  alone  are 
as  yet  spoken  of  See,  at  last,  a  final  paragraph  in  which  these 
securities  are  extended  to  all  persons  of  any  other  kingdom,  na- 
tion, city,  province  whatsoever,  "  where  doctrines  opposed  to  those 
of  the  Church  are  professed."  What  more  would  you  have  ? 
Wait.  At  the  side  of  these  words,  "  are  professed,''  ivith  im- 
punity was  slipt  in.  Thus  the  Inquisition  was  saved.  Wher- 
ever a  man  was  not  a  heretic  ivith  impunity,  the  safe-conduct 
was  null.  Accordingly,  one  does  not  see  that  this  charitable  ap- 
peal snatched  a  single  victim  from  the  pitiless  tribmial. 

*  Per  viscera  misericordia?  Dei. 

*  Ad  tarn  piam  et  salutarem  matris  sua?  ndraonitionem  excitentur  et 
convertantur :  omnibus  enim  caritatis  officiis  sancta  synodus  eos  ut  ia- 
vitat,  ita  complectitur. 


304  HISTORY  OF  THE   COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  IV. 

The  heart  shudders  at  the  thought  of  the  frightful  mihtia  to 
which,  among  the  milhons  of  Christians,  the  execution  of  the 
decrees  of  Trent  was  committed .  They  were  not  yet  written  at 
Trent,  when  they  were  engraved  with  burning  pincers,  in  the 
heart  of  Spain,  on  bodies  already  devoted  to  the  flames.  And 
Rome  applauded  ;  and  the  pope  repeated  that  Phihp  was,  in 
fact,  the  most  catholic  king,  the  most  pious  and  the  most  ortho- 
dox of  monarchs,  the  only  one  who  remained  what  all  ought  to 
have  been. 

Meanwhile  those  same  Spaniards,  who  were  so  zealous  in  be- 
half of  an  institution  so  dear  to  the  pope,  ceased  not  to  cause 
much  uneasiness  on  other  points.  There  was  not  a  meeting  at 
which  they  did  not  make  eflbrts  to  bring  back  the  famous  ques- 
tion of  residence  and  of  divine  right.  The  more  ultramontane 
they  were  in  their  dogmas,  the  more  did  they  embolden  them- 
selves not  to  be  so  in  their  ideas  on  the  dignity  of  the  episcopate, 
the  part  assigned  to  the  bishops  in  the  Church,  and  the  nature 
and  extent  of  the  pope's  supremacy.  A  most  instructive  history 
might  be  written  of  that  demi-gallicanism,  to  which  historians 
have  not  yet  given  a  name,  and  which  is  so  liberal  and  bold  on 
the  one  side,  and  so  profoundly  despotic  and  persecuting  on  the 
other.  We  shall  yet  have  to  notice  many  of  its  peculiar  traits, 
nor  can  it  be  thought  uninteresting  to  find  in  the  depths  of  Spain, 
in  the  midst  of  the  sixteenth  century,  so  many  auxilaries  against 
the  pope,  and  consequently  against  Roman  Catholicism,  without 
their  suspecting  it,  for  it  is  not  with  impunity  that  a  keystone  of 
the  vault  can  be  shaken. 

An  attempt,  therefore,  had  to  be  made  to  satisfy  them,  by 
proposing,  among  other  subjects  which  we  need  not  detail,  a 
new  examination  of  the  methods  by  which  residence  might  be 
made  more  general.  Cardinal  Simonetta,  one  of  the  legates  and 
head  of  the  ultra-papal  party,  and  of  what  a  Frenchman  would 
call  "  of  the  extreme  right,"  was  averse  to  this  commencement 
of  concession ;  the  Cardinal  of  Mantua,  premier  legate,  and  head 
of  the  moderate  ultramontanes,  and,  if  you  will,  of  the  left  cen- 
tre, had  positively  desired  it.  Notwithstanding  their  united  ef- 
forts to  concentrate  the  discussion  on  a  peaceable  examination 
of  methods,  it  fell  immediately  on  what  they  had  wished  to  keep 
off,  and  thus  the  question  became  as  complex  and  as  irritating 
as  ever. 

We  shall  not  return  to  what  we  have  already  said  upon  it. 
Eleven  sittings  were  devoted  to  it.  Hot  words  and  the  com- 
mencements of  tumults  often  occurred.  From  the  time  of  the 
old  debates  things  had  undergone  no  change  ;  the  same  prin- 
ciples, the  same  interests,  the  same  passions,  all  were  there. 


Chap.  III.  1502.  DIVISION   ON   THE   DIVINE   RIGHT.  806 

Some  were  as  obstinate  as  ever  in  afTiriniiig  tliat  on  residence 
being  once  declared  to  be  of  divine  right,  it  would  be  universally 
practised  ;  others,  as  obstinate  as  ever,  maintained  that  matters 
would  be  no  better,  and  that,  besides,  in  all  things  good  results 
do  not  always  prove  the  truth  of  the  principle.  In  this  they 
were  not  wrong.  The  question  was  not  which  of  the  two  sys- 
tems did  most  good  or  most  harm,  but  which  of  the  two  was 
true  ?  Is  it  by  the  authority  of  the  pope,  or  by  that  of  God,  that 
a  bishop  is  bound  to  reside  in  his  church  ? 

There  was  nothing  then,  it  would  appear,  but  that  on  the 
question  having  been  once  sufficiently  debated,  they  should  take 
the  votes.  Is  not  the  majority  of  a  council  necessarily  in  the 
right  ?  But  the  papal  faction  ardently  desired  that  there  should 
be  no  voting ;  and  even  among  the  partisans  of  the  divine  right 
there  were  several  who  dreaded,  for  the  honour  of  the  council, 
a  voting  in  which  it  could  be  seen  beforehand  that  the  members 
would  be  far  from  unanimous.  The  legates  themselves  were  not 
agreed.  Three  wished  that  the  voting  should  proceed  ;  two 
were  opposed  to  this.^  Now,  they  had  orders  Irom  the  pope 
always  to  act  in  concert ;  but  as  it  was  necessary  that  they 
should  come  to  the  point,  the  Cardinal  of  Mantua,  as  president, 
decided  that  the  vote  should  be  taken. 

This  was  done  accordingly.  Historians  differ  as  to  the  num- 
ber of  the  voters  and  the  repartition  of  the  votes.  Let  us  keep 
therefore  to  Massarelli,  secretary  to  the  council,  cited  by  Palla- 
vicini  as  the  only  correct  authority  on  this  point.  According  to 
him  there  were  an  hundred  and  thirty  voters  ;  for  declaring  the 
divine  right,  sixty-six  ;  against,  seventy-one  ;  papal  majority, 
five.  But,  always  according  to  Massarelli,  among  the  seventy- 
one  votes  counted  as  opposed  to  the  declaration,  there  were 
thirty-seven  only  who  were  so  absolutely ;  of  the  other  thirty- 
four  prelates,  some  answered,  "  yes,  provided  the  pope  be  first 
consulted,"  and  others,  "no,  if  the  pope  has  not  been  first  con- 
sulted," which  sufficiently  shews  that  they  were  at  bottom  for 
the  affirmative,  and  that  it  was  from  respect  for  the  pope  that 
they  did  not  join  the  ayes. 

There  was  in  reality  then  a  considerable  majority  in  favour 
of  the  divine  right.  The  sitting  had  been  long  and  stormy  ;  the 
assembly  was  dismissed  without  being  asked  what  it  meant 
should  be  the  result  of  this  voting,  and  as  an  escape  from  this 
difficulty,  the  legates  interpreted  it  in  the  sense  of  a  reference  to 
the  pope,  although  such  reference  had  been  positively  voted  by 
only  thirty-four  members,  being  just  a  fourth  of  the  council. 
Accordingly  they  wished  to  say  nothing  about  it ;  but  it  came 
^.  As  yet  they  Avere  only  five  in  number. 


306  HISTORY   OF  THE    COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  IV. 

out  that  one  of  the  Cardinal  of  Mantua's  secretaries  had  set  out 
for  Rome,  and  the  Spaniards  bitterly  complained  of  it  at  the 
following  congregation.  "  Are  we  a  council,"  said  they,  "  or 
merely  the  pope's  counsellors  ?  Better  to  have  frankly  said  that 
no  council  is  wanted  than  to  call  us  together  only  to  make  us 
slaves."  And  these  complaints,  repeated  from  day  to  day,  were 
all  the  more  disquieting  in  that  they  were  uttered  by  those  who 
were  most  zealous  in  behalf  of  discipline  and  the  faith.  "  His 
holiness,"  wrote  the  ambassador  of  France  at  Rome,^  "  is  much 
hindered  at  present  on  account  of  the  complaints  made  by  these 
prelates  that  the  afiairs  of  the  said  council  are  sent  thither  and 
consulted  upon  here,  saying  that  this  is  a  violation  of  its  liberty." 

What  still  more  liindered  his  holiness  than  the  irregularity  of 
the  reference,  was  the  reference  itself  A  letter  from  the  Floren- 
tine ambassador  to  Duke  Cosmo,  gives  an  excellent  picture  of 
the  position  of  affairs.  According  to  him,  after  the  evident  ma- 
jority obtained  by  the  principle  of  divine  right,  Pius  IV.  was 
morally  bound  to  pronounce  in  that  sense ;  but,  on  the  other 
hand,  although  his  convictions  or  his  interests  had  not  been  to 
the  contrary,  still  he  ought  to  have  felt  repugnant  at  erecting 
into  an  article  of  faith  what  bad  been  so  warmly  combated  by 
thirty  or  forty  of  the  most  Catholic  prelates.  But  looking  at  the 
matter  in  a  merely  human  point  of  view,  would  it  not  have  been 
a  kind  of  treason  towards  those  men,  to  whom  so  much  was  due, 
seeing  that  it  was  through  them  that  the  legates  led  the  council  ? 
Hence,  had  he  refused  there  would  have  been  an  almost  univer- 
sal discontent  in  Spain,  Germany,  and  France  ;  had  he  agreed, 
an  almost  universal  discontent  in  Italy,  a  discontent  more  respect- 
ful, perhaps,  but  in  some  respects  more  dangerous.  We  shall 
see,  accordingly,  that  he  took  good  care  not  to  pronounce  either 
way. 

At  Trent,  the  excess  of  the  evil  had  ended  at  last  in  procuring 
a  remedy.  The  violence  of  the  scenes  that  had  occurred  pro- 
duced a  general  impression  that  it  would  not  require  much  of 
the  same  sort  of  thing  to  bring  the  council  to  a  close  amid  the 
contempt  of  Roman  Catholics  and  the  laughter  of  Protestants. 
Some  serious  men  of  both  parties  in  the  council  came  to  a  mutual 
understanding  not  to  give  such  scandal  to  the  Church,  or  such 
satisfaction  to  her  enemies.  By  a  tacit  agreement  there  was  a 
mutual  abstinence  from  all  allusion  to  those  debates,  and  thus 
six  peaceful  sittings  could  be  devoted  to  the  other  points  that  had 
been  proposed. 

These  formed  an  odd  medley  of  all  sorts  of  questions.  It  was 
evident  that  the  legates  had  jumbled  together  eveiything  they 
^  Letter  to  Charles  IX.,  6th  May,  1562. 


Chap.  ITI.  1562.     SALE   OF  COLLECTIONS   FOR    HOSPITALS.  807 

had  thouglit  capable  of  being  examined  without  touching  on  tlie 
article  ot  the  continuation.  The  council  had  to  consider  ordina- 
tions, parochial  cure  of  souls,  dismissals  on  the  ground  of  incapa- 
city or  immorality,  collections  lor  hospitals,  clandestine  marriages, 
kc. ;  all  matters  on  which  there  was,  in  fact,  much  to  be  said 
and  much  to  be  regulated,  but  which  one  would  not  have  ex- 
pected to  see  all  huddled  together. 

Here,  as  elsewhere,  among  the  abuses  marked  for  correction, 
there  were  some  which  at  the  present  day  we  should  think 
fabulous.  Thus,  for  example,  one  might  purchase  from  the  pope 
the  monopoly  of  collections  for  such  or  such  an  hospital ;  upon 
wdiich,  on  payment  of  a  fixed  yearly  sum  to  that  establishment, 
the  purchaser  went  to  collect  by  begging  wherever  he  chose,  and 
to  what  extent  he  chose.  These  privileges,  ordinarily  highly 
lucrative,  passed  from  hand  to  hand,  like  shares  in  a  trading  con- 
cern at  the  present  day ;  often  the  actual  working  of  the  specu- 
lation fell  to  the  second  or  the  third  hand,  and  still  all  the  parties 
interested  had  a  profit.  Accordingly,  there  was  no  kind  of  arti- 
fice or  fraud  that  the  subaltern  agents  would  not  call  to  their 
aid.  Promises  of  indulgences,  prophecies,  miracles,  everything 
was  good  Avhen  it  was  money  that  was  to  be  got. 

Although  there  was  but  one  voice  at  Trent  in  denouncing  this 
scandal,  the  council  dared  not  attack  it.  How  could  it  annul 
acts,  authentically  emanating  from  Rome  ?  Here,  then,  as  in 
the  aflair  of  the  Index,  the  consent  of  the  pope  had  to  be  obtained, 
and  upon  that  new  complaints  arose  that  the  council  was  rather 
at  Rome  than  at  Trent.  It  was  asked  whether,  then,  it  w^as  for 
the  purpose  of  habituating  it  to  obedience  that  the  legates  had 
presented  subjects  of  this  sort  to  begin  with  ?  In  fact,  as  the 
greater  number  of  the  points  indicated  lay  within  the  domain 
of  the  pope's  administrative  authority,  the  boldest  of  the  bishops 
were  compelled  to  feel  that  they  could  not  touch  them  without 
his  sanction. 

Meanwhile  those  few  peaceable  sittings,  signalized  by  very 
wise  decisions,  did  not  prevent  the  question  of  divine  right  from 
remaining  suspended,  as  menacingly  as  ever,  over  the  head  of 
•  the  pope  and  of  the  legates.  When  we  say  the  legates,  we  are 
not  quite  correct :  the  Cardinal  of  Mantua,  their  president,  held 
the  opinion  of  the  Spaniards.  But  Cardinal  iSimonetta,  who 
enjoyed  the  Pope's  secret  confidence,  corresponded  directly  with 
Rome,  held  the  strings  of  all  the  intrigues  that  were  on  foot,  and 
exercised,  in  fact,  all  the  rights  of  the  prcsidence.  The  reference 
to  the  pope  was  his  work ;  but  the  pope,  ostensibly  at  least,  did 
not  thank  him  for  it.  An  answer  was  required,  and  we  have 
seen  how  difficult  it  was  to  give  one.     After  much  thought  the 


308  HISTORY    OF   THE    COUNCH.    OF   TRENT.  Book  IV. 

pope  communicated  to  the  college  of  cardinals  the  evasive  letter 
which  he  had  resolved  to  v^rite  to  Trent,  on  which  all  approved 
of  his  pronouncing  no  decision.  He  confined  himself  to  protest- 
ing, on  the  one  hand,  that  the  council  was  free,  and  that  he  had 
no  intention  of  anywise  hampering  it — while,  at  the  same  time, 
he  powerfully  reminded  them,  on  the  other,  that  he  was  the  sole 
legitimate  chief  of  the  assembly,  and  that  it  never  could  feel  a 
high  enough  regard  for  him. 

This  reply,  read  to  the  cardinals  on  the  9th  of  May,  could  not 
reach  Trent  before  the  session  which  was  fixed  for  the  14th. 
The  legates  were  impatiently  waiting  for  it,  as  likely  to  lighten 
the  weight  of  responsibility  under  which  they  felt  themselves  tot- 
tering ;  afterwards  they  ought  to  have  felt  thankful  that  they 
had  not  received  it  in  time,  for  it  would  have  authorized  a  de- 
finitive voting,  and  the  divine  right  would  infallibly  have  carried 
the  day.  They  were  enabled,  accordingly,  to  succeed  in  having 
nothing  more  said  about  it  in  that  session,  but  only  by  consent- 
ing that  no  more  should  the  decrees  on  which  they  had  agreed, 
be  published.  In  this  manner  the  question  had  of  necessity  to 
lie  over. 

The  public  sitting,  therefore,  went  offin  ceremonies.  Audience 
was  given  to  some  ambassadors  who  had  recently  arrived  ;  there 
was,  as  usual,  the  mass  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  a  sermon,  pomps  of  all 
sorts  ;  but  what  was  read  was  only  a  decree  a  few  lines  in  length, 
by  which  the  session  was  prorogued  to  the  4th  of  June,  and  that, 
it  was  said,  "for  just  and  honourable  reasons."^  Honourable 
for  whom  ?  Not  assuredly  for  the  council  which  had  never  yet 
been  so  openly  led  by  the  pope  ;  or  for  the  pope,  who  saw  him- 
self morally  vanquished  ;  or  for  the  authority  of  the  Church,  for 
it  was  a  very  strange  spectacle  to  see  so  much  contention  upon 
a  point  which  ought  to  have  been  settled  for  ages,  and  which  is 
not  settled  to  this  day. 

Q^uarrels  of  such  fierceness  were  not  long  of  throwing  Pius  lY. 
into  the  old  papal  track.  Like  Paul  HI.  and  Julius  HI.,  he  had 
conceived  an  aversion  for  the  council.  If  he  did  not  yet  speak 
openly  of  dissolving  it,  he  allowed  others  to  speak  of  this  ;  his 
counsellors,  who  had  never  approved  of  the  convocation,  even  af 
the  time  when  he  shewed  some  eagerness  in  labouring  at  it,  now 
saw  nothing  at  Trent  but  a  seditious  and  rebel  assembly. 

Regrets,  accordingly,  began  to  be  felt  at  there  having  been  no 
announcement,  from  the  very  first,  of  the  continuation  of  the  old 
council,  as  that  would  probably  have  led,  thanks  to  the  simul- 
taneous protests  of  the  emperor  and  the  king  of  France,  to  the 
breaking  up  of  the  Assembly.  And  this  was  all  the  moie  regret- 
-  Justis  nonnullis  ac  honestis  causis. 


Chap.  III.  1502.        DISPARITY   AMONG    THE   PRELATES.  309 

ted,  inasmuch  as  had  ihey  begun  with  that,  tliey  might  have 
been  sure  of  having  it  voted  by  an  imposing  majority,  whereas, 
after  the  contention  about  tlie  divine  right,  iu  which  the  opposite 
parties  had  become  so  strongly  marked,  there  was  reason  to  ap- 
prehend a  dangerous  nearness  to  an  equahty  of  votes.  Never- 
theless, the  pope  was  resolved  to  run  the  risk.  "  The  great 
distrust  often  shewn  by  his  holiness  for  the  prelates,  and  for  the 
greater  luimber  of  the  articles  that  have  been  proposed  hitherto, 
leads  many  to  presume  that  his  holiness  desires  to  find  means  for 
abridging  or  interrupting  the  said  council,  and  this  conjecture  is 
thought  to  be  strongly  supported  by  a  dispatch,  sent  oil"  a  week 
ago,  for  the  continuation  to  be  declared."^  The  legates,  there- 
fore, must  have  had  orders  to  that  effect.  For  the  rest,  it  de- 
pended neither  on  them  nor  the  pope  that  that  question  should 
remain  any  longer  undecided.  Besides  that  it  would  no  longer 
have  been  easy  to  find  subjects  once  more  of  so  neutral  a  descrip- 
tion as  that  they  should  not  have  seemed  to  establish  a  bond  be- 
tween the  old  sessions  and  the  new,  the  approaching  arrival  of 
the  French  ambassadors  w^as  sure  to  provoke  explanations,  and  it 
was  known  that  they  would  themselves  begin  with  asking  them. 
The  bishop  of  Paris,  Du  Bellai,  who  had  arrived  a  few  days 
before,  spoke  and  acted  already  with  an  audacity  little  fitted  to 
re-assure  the  pope  as  to  the  dispositions  of  his  country's  bishops. 
One  day  that  Verallo,  bishop  of  Capaccio,  contradicted  him  in  a 
congregation  :  "  How  many  souls  have  you  to  guide?"  said  Du 
Bellai.  "  Five  hundred,"  replied  the  Italian.  "  And  I,"  re- 
sponded the  Frenchman,  "  have  five  hundred  thousand."  Nor 
was  this  the  first  time  that  the  Italian  prelates  had  heard  them- 
selves twitted  with  the  petty  size  of  their  dioceses.  The  bishop 
of  Paris  glorying  in  his  half  million  of  burgesses,  was  a  small 
enough  lord  by  the  side  of  certain  of  the  German  prelates.  What 
a  distance  then  betwixt  the  latter  and  those  of  Italy ;  between 
Verallo,  for  instance,  and  his  five  hundred  souls,  and  the  bishop 
of  Wurzburg,  who  had  for  his  vassals  no  fewer  than  thirteen 
counts,  five  barons,  and  three  hundred  and  fifty  knights — almost 
as  many,  in  fact,  altogether  as  Verallo's  whole  flock  I  Those 
haughty  prelates,  accordingly,  resigned  themselves  with  a  bad 
grace  to  sitting  on  the  council  benches  as  the  equals  of  these 
poor  mitred  priests,  thirty  or  forty  of  whom  had  not  wherewithal 
to  live  when  absent  from  home,  and  enjoyed  a  small  pension 
from  the  pope.  Pius  IV.  had  the  honesty  to  complain  of  the 
three  thousand  crowns  a  month  which  it  cost  him  to  have  them 
at  the  council ;  often,  in  conversing  with  the  ambassadors,  he 

^  The  ambassador  of  France  to  Rome  (De  Lisle).     Letter  of  15th 
June,  1562. 


310  HISTORY   OF   THE    COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  IV. 

had  candidly  reminded  them  of  this  sacrifice  as  a  proof  of  his 
goodwill.  Perhaps  there  was  less  naivete  in  it  than  policy,  and 
that  in  paying  these  pensions  in  open  light  of  day,  he  hoped  to 
have  a  little  less  the  air  of  one  who  bought  votes. 

Fain,  too,  would  he  have  had  it  in  his  power,  even  though  it 
had  cost  him  double  or  triple  the  amount,  to  buy  those  of  the 
French  bishops,  now  expected  from  day  to  day,  and  who  could 
not  fail  so  far  to  augment  the  anti-papal  faction.  Not  being 
able  to  address  them,  he  addressed  himself  to  the  king.  He  of- 
fered him  secretly  a  hundred  thousand  crowns  as  a  pure  gift,  if 
his  prelates  M^ould  not  insist  on  the  votes  being  taken  anew  on 
the  divine  right ;  he  then  offered  him  a  hundred  thousand  more, 
under  the  form  of  a  loan,  on  condition  that  the  whole  was  to  be 
applied  to  the  levying  of  troops  against  the  Protestants.  He  de- 
manded, moreover,  that  these  troops  should  be  placed  under  the 
orders  of  his  legrate,  that  all  the  edicts  in  favour  of  the  Protest- 
ants  should  be  repealed,  that  the  chancellor  should  be  dismissed ; 
in  fine,  that  they  should  not  lay  down  arms  until  after  the  entire 
submission  of  the  rebels.  This  was  a  good  deal  to  expect  for 
two  hundred  thousand,  and  even  for  three  hundred  thousand 
crowns,  if  Pallavicini  gives  the  right  sum,  although  the  corres- 
pondences speak  of  two  hundred  only. 

While  these  things  were  doing  the  French  Ambassadors  ar- 
rived. Louis  de  Saint  Gelais,  sieur  de  Lansac,  chief  ambassa- 
dor, had  for  his  colleagues  Arnaud  du  Ferrier,  president  of  the 
Parliament  of  Paris,  and  Guy  du  Faur  de  Pibrac,  of  that  of  Tou- 
louse. This  last,  who  was  charged  with  the  delivery  of  the 
speech,  acquitted  himself  like  a  man  of  spirit.  One  would  have 
said,  to  hear  him  speak,  that  past  and  present  embarrassments 
were  alike  unknown  to  him.  He  seemed  to  come  before  an  as- 
sembly that  had  no  antecedents,  good  or  bad,  no  divisions  of  any 
sort,  no  aspirations  but  such  as  arose  from  a  love  of  religion  and 
the  Church.  "  It  is  a  great  e\dl  to  wish  to  change  everything ; 
it  is  a  great  evil  also  to  wish  to  preserve  everything  in  spite  of 
time  and  men.  There  have  been  councils  that  were  far  from 
free  ;  some,  indeed,  have  been  completely  enslaved,  witness  that 
which  terminated  ten  years  ago,  and  at  which  several  of  you 
had  the  disagreeable  task  of  being  present  ;  but  as  for  you,  you 
who  are  a  council  quite  new,  entirely  free,  assured  of  the  pro- 
tection and  concurrence  of  all  the  princes  of  Christendom,  who 
would  suspect  you  of  not  listening  in  all  things  to  the  voice  of 
your  conscience,  and  of  receiving  besides  from  heaven  the  inspi- 
rations which  you  will  present  to  us  as  those  of  the  Holy  Ghost  ?"^ 
Such  was  the  substance  and  the  tone  of  his  harangue.     It  was 

*  Quoted  by  Elias  Dapin. 


Chap.  HI.  15G2.     ANSWER   TO   THE   FRENCH   AMBASSADORS.  311 

nothing  but  a  long  and  severe  satire  on  the  council,  on  the  pope, 
oil  all  that  had  been  done,  on  all  that  they  Avere  in  course  of 
doing. 

An  answer  had  to  be  made  ;  and,  according  to  custom,  had  to 
be  given  at  the  next  session.  Some  bishops  wished  it  to  be 
strong  and  smart.  The  Spaniards  and  their  ambassadors,  who 
never  ceased  asking  to  have  the  continuation  distinctly  declared, 
said  that  that  was  the  only  reply  to  make  ;  but,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  that  point,  they  were  very  nearly  thinking  all  that 
Pibrac  had  said.  Others  remarked,  not  without  reason,  that  if 
an  attempt  were  made  to  refute  some  of  his  sarcasms,  they  would 
need  to  be  all  refuted,  a  course  that  would  lead  them  far  beyond 
the  limits  of  good  policy  and  prudence.  Pibrac,  besides,  before 
delivering  a  copy  of  his  speech,  had  very  much  softened  it,  and 
the  council  was  presumed  to  have  heard  only  what  it  had  re- 
ceived in  writing.  The  answer  therefore,  drawn  up  in  the  most 
general  terms  possible,  bore  "  That  the  council  had  never  doubted 
the  good  dispositions  of  the  king  of  France ;  that  it  had  no  reason 
consequently  to  take  in  ill  part  the  observations  presented  in  his 
name  ;  in  fine,  that  the  council  intended  in  good  earnest  to  be 
free  and  to  remain  free,  from  whatever  quarter  attempts  to  en- 
slave it  might  come."  This  last  stroke  was  not  ill  imagined, 
as  giving  it  to  be  understood  that,  failing  the  pope's  doing  so, 
there  were  plenty  of  others  who  aimed  hardly  less  at  the  enslav- 
ing of  the  assembly.  Those  princes  who  exclaimed  most  against 
the  influence  of  the  pope  were  precisely  those  who  had  most 
desire  to  substitute  their  own  in  its  place  ;  it  was  thought  bad 
that  the  Holy  Ghost  should  come  from  Rome,  and  unheard  of 
efibrts  were  at  the  same  time  made  to  make  him  come  from 
Madrid,  Paris,  Vienna,  Augsburg.  The  council  could  not  have 
shaken  oiY  the  yoke  of  one  master  without  falling  under  that  of 
another. 

In  the  midst  of  these  distracting  influences,  the  session  of  the 
4th  of  June  could  only  be  a  repetition  of  that  of  the  14th  of 
May.  There  were  neither  decrees  of  faith  nor  of  discipline,  but 
an  adjournment  until  the  16th  of  July,  nay,  in  order  that  a  third 
blank  session  might  not  be  held,  it  w^as  put  down  in  the  decree 
that  in  the  event  of  this  last  term  being  put  off,  this  should  be 
done  by  a  simple  resolution  past  at  a  congregation.  Thirty-six 
bishops  craved  that  the  promise  of  a  decree  on  residence  should 
be  inserted,  which  would  have  implied  an  engagement  to  vote 
on  the  divine  right ;  but  the  majority  W'ere  opposed  to  any  such 
engagement. 


CHAPTER    IV. 


SESSION    XXI.       COMMUNION    IN    BOTH    KINDS.        THE    COUNCIL    IN- 
TRACTABLE.      MORE    PAPAL    INTRIGUES.       NO    RESULTS. 

Question  of  the  communion  in  both  kinds  again,  with  a  false  turn — 
Twenty  demands  made  by  the  emperor's  ambassador — All  becomes 
complicated  anew — the  pope  blames  the  legates — He  takes  up  arms 
— Imminent  ruptures — Digression — "What  the  pope  was  in  the  eyes 
of  the  princes — Their  motives  for  maintaining  and  sparing  him — Pius 
IV.  has  again  the  upper  hand — Visconti's  mission — Is  the  suppression 
of  the  wine  in  the  supjjer  ordained  in  Scripture  or  only  commanded 
— Neither  the  one  nor  the  other — Analysis — Of  what  is  the  lay  per- 
son deprived — This  question  eluded — The  question  of  the  concession 
of  the  cup  resumed — The  council  seems  less  liberal  than  the  pope — 
Urgent  demands  of  the  ambassadors — Tergiversations  of  the  legates 
— Twenty-first  sessiox — Unexpected  debates — Several  points  left  un- 
decided— General  disappointment — '^They  do  only  what  they  have  a 
mind  to" — Neutrality  of  the  king  of  Spain — Advantage  which  Pius 
IV.  derives  from  it — The  supper  viewed  as  a  sacrifice. 

Then  it  was  that  the  legates  decided  at  last  on  allowing  the 
question  of  the  communion  under  both  kinds  to  come  on.  Be- 
sides that  the  French  and  the  German  ambassadors  had  never 
ceased  to  beg  that  the  council  would  take  it  up,  there  remained 
but  one  means  of  escape  from  the  voting  which  they  did  not 
like  to  promise,  and  that  was  to  divert  attention,  and  concentrate 
disputation  on  a  point  of  sufficient  importance  to  throw  every- 
thing else  for  the  moment  into  the  shade. 

The  legates,  accordingly,  drew  up  a  certain  number  of  articles 
which  embraced  the  whole  subject.  Such  was  the  ordinary 
course,  but  on  this  occasion  it  had  the  inconvenience  of  brinjjins: 
many  things  into  question  against  the  desire  of  the  emperor  and 
the  king  of  France.  What  these,  in  fact,  had  asked  was  not  a 
dogmatical  decision  on  the  nature  and  validity  of  the  commu- 
nion without  wine,  but  the  purely  disciplinary  authorization  to 
grant  the  wine  to  those  populations  which  should  require  it. 
This  last  point  being  the  only  one  on  which  the  Church  could 
make  any  concession,  there  was  no  need  for  taking  up  the  others, 
at  least  for  the  moment. 


Oii.u'.  IV.  1562.     BOLD   l»ROroSlTIONS   OF   THE   AMBASSADORS.  313 

And  not  only  was  llic  question  not  sudicicntly  restricted,  but 
it  was  mis-stated.  The  iirst  article  ran  thus  :  "  Is  every  Chris- 
tian obliged  by  divine  right  to  communicate  under  both  kinds?" 
Here  we  at  once  see  a  wrong  turn  given  to  it.  Tlie  Protestants, 
as  we  have  seen,  did  not  say  that  the  wine  w^as  absolutely  ne- 
cessary ;  they  asked  why,  and  by  what  right  the  Church  of 
Rome  had  taken  it  from  the  people,  especially  after  having  al- 
lowed it  to  them  for  many  centuries  ?  "  Is  anything  less  re- 
ceived inider  one  kind  than  under  both  ?"  it  is  said  in  another 
article.  Another  mis-statement  of  the  question.  There  was  no 
need  of  inquiring  wdiether  Jesus  Christ  could  have  simplified 
the  communion  and  employed  it  in  bread  only,  but  after  he  had 
once  thought  fit  to  use  both  bread  and  wine,  could  the  faithful 
be  obliged  to  be  content  with  only  one  of  the  tw^o  ? 

It  is  true  that  to  these  two  questions  there  was  added  a  third, 
more  in  accordance  with  the  demand  that  had  been  made.  "  Do 
the  reasons  that  have  led  the  Church  to  deprive  the  laity  of  the 
cup  interdict  her  from  ever  conceding  it  to  any  one  ?"  These 
words  seemed  to  hint  the  possibility  of  concession  ;  but  as  the 
two  preceding  points  could  not  fail  to  be  decided  in  an  alto- 
gether Roman  Catholic  sense,  it  was  evidcyiit  that  a  disciplinary 
concession,  preceded  by  two  dogmatical  condemnations,  would 
not  bring  back  a  single  Protestant,  and  could  nowise  satisfy  those 
princes  who  were  flattering  themselves  with  the  idea  of  bring- 
ing them  back. 

The  emperor's  ambassadors,  accordingly,  who  had  lor  some 
time  shewed  themselves  more  tractable,  with  the  view  of  having 
the  subject  taken  up,  all  at  once  ceased  to  lay  any  constraint  on 
their  feelings.  The  day  following  that  on  which  the  questions 
were  put  into  shape  they  craved  an  audience  of  the  legates,  and 
this  in  order  that  they  might  lay  before  them  a  fuller  and  bolder 
plan  of  reformation  than  any  that  had  yet  been  proposed.  They 
asked  : 

That  the  pope  should  reform  both  himself  and  his  court ; 

That  all  the  bishops,  without  exception,  should  be  compelled 
to  residence  ; 

That  plurality  of  offices  should  be  definitively  abolished  ; 

That  all  the  monastic  orders  should  be  reformed,  in  the  spirit 
of  their  first  institution  ; 

That  the  breviary  and  the  missals  should  have  everything 
taken  out  of  them  that  is  not  to  be  found  in  Holy  Scripture  ; 

That  a  certain  number  of  the  prayers,  if  not  all,  should  be  in 
the  vulgar  tongue  ; 

That  the  priests  should  be  allowed  to  marry,  at  least  in  some 
nations  ; 

0 


314  HISTORY   OF  THE   COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  IV. 

That  the  revenues  of  benefices  without  cure  of  souls,  should 
be  applied  to  the  augmentation  of  small  livings  ; 

That  excommunication  should  be  reserved  for  a  certain  num- 
ber of  great  sins  and  great  scandals  ; 

That  ecclesiastical  laM^s  should  not  be  regarded  as  equal  to 
the  laws  of  God  ; 

And  many  things  besides.  In  fine,  to  pour  a  little  balm  on 
so  many  wounds,  the  twentieth  and  last  article  required  that  the 
council  should  abstain  from  treating  all  questions  of  no  use  and 
great  delicacy,  and  that,  in  particular,  of  the  Divine  right.  A 
feeble  concession  in  reality,  ibr  the  council  had  only  to  concede 
two  or  three  of  the  above  points  in  order  to  the  papal  authority 
being  greatly  shaken,  more  so  perhaps  than  it  could  have  been 
by  that  vain  statement  of  principles  on  the  essence  of  Episcopal 
rights. 

Never  yet  had  circumstances  appeared  more  critical ;  the  le- 
gates Avere  now  at  Trent  at  best  but  soldiers,  thrown  into  an 
untenable  post  which  they  could  no  longer  think  of  keeping,  but 
must  abandon  with  the  least  delay  and  dishonour  possible.  To 
the  annoyances  they  met  with  on  the  side  of  the  ambassadors 
and  the  assembly,  there  had  been  added  for  some  time  past  that 
of  having  unceasingly  to  justify  themselves  to  the  pope.  Soured 
by  the  defeats  he  had  had,  Pius  IV.  could  not  understand  hovv^ 
matters  should  go  any  otherwise  than  under  his  predecessors,' 
who  always  held  the  mastery,  and  directed  not  only  the  votes 
but  even  the  debates  of  the  assembly.  He  laid  the  blame  on 
his  legates.  Armed  with  one  right  more,  that  of  themselves  pro- 
posing all  the  subjects  that  were  to  be  treated,  why  should  they 
have  allowed  that  untoward  question  of  the  Divine  right  to  be 
resurned  ?  Simonetta  threw  the  blame  on  the  Cardinal  of  Man- 
tua. The  latter,  although  a  partisan  of  the  Divine  right,  had 
done  his  best  to  prevent  its  being  discussed,  but  had  not  thought 
it  competent  for  him  to  interpose  authoritatively.  To  avail 
themselves  at  the  very  opening  of  the  council  of  the  more  than 
doubtful  right  conferred  on  the  legates  by  the  clause  'projponen- 
lihus  legatis  would  have  provoked  an  explanation,  after  which  it 
Avould  have  been  evident  that  the  majority  had  nowise  intended 
lo  confer  it  upon  them.  The  Cardinal  of  Mantua  offered  to 
resign  ;  this  offer  the  pope  dared  not  accept,  for  it  would  have 
been  a  public  avowal  of  his  chagrin  and  his  fears,  and,  besides, 
who  was  there  to  put  in  his  place  ?  He  was  a  general  favorite, 
and  none  but  he  could  hope  to  maintain  some  measure  of  unity 
and  of  harmony  in  the  council. 

On  the  reading  of  the  twenty  articles  the  presidents  saw  at 
once  the  imminence  of  the  dancer,  and  could  think  of  nothins 


Chai-    IV.  1362.     UNIQUE    POSITION    OF    THE   POl'EDOM.  Jilo 

but  the  common  safety.  The  ambassadors  received  for  answer 
that  the  question  of  the  cup  Avould  probably  suffice  for  the  as- 
sembly's occupation  until  the  next  session  ;  but  this  was  no  more 
than  a  month  gained  at  most,  and  then  how  were  the  twenty 
articles  to  be  got  rid  of?  The  legates,  therefore,  wrote  a  de- 
spairing letter  to  the  pope,  telling  him  that  they  had  exhausted 
all  their  expedients,  and  that  the  only  chance  of  safety  lay  hi 
dissolvinsf  the  council. 

The  pope  thought  of  this.  In  default  of  votes  in  the  assem- 
bly he  was  in  course  of  procuring  seven  thousand  good  troops, 
and  spoke  of  nothing  less  than  placing  himself  at  the  head  of  his 
European  confederation  against  the  Protestants.  But  it  is  little 
likely  that  he  believed  in  the  success  of  that  project,  for  he  knew 
too  well  the  position  of  all  the  secular  princes.  In  fact,  there 
were  only  the  king  of  Spain  and  himself  that  were  in  a  position 
to  unite  openly  for  the  extirpation  of  heresy.  All  the  rest  had 
appearances  to  preserve  ;  several  of  them,  even  had  they  been  free 
from  all  trammels,  would  not  have  liked  the  pope  for  a  chief, 
and  even  Philip  himself,  eager  as  he  was  to  offer  his  arm  to  the 
clergy  of  France,  was  no  more  disposed  than  any  other  to  be  the 
soldier  of  Pius  IV.  Nations  and  kings  were  accustoming  them- 
selves more  and  more  every  day  to  dissociate  the  popedom  from 
the  Church,  and  the  interests  of  religion  from  those  of  Rome  ; 
nations  and  kings  shewed  themselves  more  and  more  disposed 
every  day  to  do  without  the  pope.  The  opposition  of  the  Spanish 
prelates,  men  so  far  removed,  at  the  same  time,  from  all  suspi- 
cion of  heresy,  so  fiercely  opposed  to  the  heretics,  so  profoundly 
devoted  to  the  Roman  articles  of  faith,  contributed  more  than 
anything  else  to  open  men's  eyes  and  detach  their  hearts. 

How  was  the  break  in  the  chain  repaired  ?  How  at  least 
could  interests  so  various  be  brought  to  move  again  in  parallel 
lines  ?  This  is  a  problem  which  we  find  re-occurring  at  every 
step  in  the  history  of  the  Church.  Let  us  study  it  for  a  moment, 
not  in  a  general  and  abstract  way,  but  in  the  facts  which  were, 
at  this  epoch,  once  more  about  to  lead  to  a  solution  of  it.  We 
could  not  find  a  better  opportunity. 

First,  then,  the  very  w'cakuess  of  the  pope  was  about  to  prove, 
although  it  w^as  in  spite  of  himself,  one  of  the  causes  of  his 
strength.  Suppose  him  to  have  been  in  a  condition  to  put  in 
motion  an  army,  not  of  seven  thousand  but  of  an  hundred  thou- 
sand men.  He  might  have  dispensed  with  the  services  of  the 
princes  ;  might  have  proclaimed  war  on  Avhomsoever  he  pleased  ; 
might  have  openly  declared  that  he  would  not  have  the  council ; 
he  mifjht  not  only  have  asked,  he  might  have  insisted  on  a  gen- 
eral union  for  the  extirpation  of  heresy.      He  would  thus  have 


816  HISTORY  OF   THE   COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  IV. 

ranked  with  powers  of  the  first  order,  but  he  would  also  have 
been  subject,  like  them,  to  all  the  chances  of  arms  ;  like  them 
he  would  have  had  to  risk  all  on  a  single  chance.  In  a  word, 
he  might  disdain  oblique  methods  and  advance  straight  to  his 
object,  but  might  fall  and  perish  before  reaching  it. 

More  feeble  than  others,  he  was  patient  ;  and  in  politics  it  is 
the  patient  who  are  the  truly  able  and  the  really  strong.  As  it 
was  not  with  seven  or  eight  thousand  men  that  Pius  lY.  could 
march  against  the  emperor  or  the  king  of  France  and  demand 
satisfaction,  he  had  of  necessity  to  afiect  not  to  notice  their  in- 
sults. In  private  he  might  call  them  heretics,  excommunicate 
them  in  thought  and  intention,  bitterly  complain  of  the  twenty 
articles,  and  curse  that  insolent  Count  de  Lansac,  who  had  said 
that  the  Holy  Ghost  came  to  Trent  in  a  courier's  portmanteau, 
and  who,  quite  lately,  at  a  grand  entertainment  before  the  bish- 
ops, had  dared  to  cry  out  that  they  should  soon  bring  the  mat- 
ter to  an  end  by  chasing  the  idol  out  of  Rome  ;  but  in  public 
and  in  his  diplomatic  relations,  if  Pius  had  not  the  lustre  of  an 
idol,  he  had  at  least  its  impassibility.  It  was  by  devouring  af- 
fronts in  silence  that  he  took  from  the  princes  all  desire  to  offer 
him  more,  or  even  to  persist  in  those  already  offered. 

Along  with  this  temporal  weakness,  whicli  thus  appears  to  us 
at  the  most  critical  conjunctures  one  of  the  ramparts  of  the 
popedom,  Home  had  her  moral  force,  her  slow  but  resistless 
ascendency  over  the  determinations  of  the  princes.  Her  moral 
force,  Ave  say  ;  if  we  do  not  place  it  here,  either  in  the  first  or 
the  second  line,  it  is  of  set  purpose,  and  history,  we  think,  fully 
sanctions  this.  The  pope,  in  reahty,  has  never  been  thought 
the  indispensable  head  of  the  Roman  Catholic  unity ;  the  very 
clergy,  when  their  own  interests,  or  those  of  the  princes,  have 
placed  them  momentarily  out  of  harmony  with  the  Holy  See, 
seem  not  to  have  quailed  at  the  idea  of  being  left  without  a 
supreme  head.  Have  we  not  had  a  proof  of  this  without  going 
beyond  the  council  ?  Have  the  bishops,  German,  French,  Span- 
ish, many  of  the  Italians  even,  looked  like  persons  who  w^re 
convinced  that  they  could  not  do  without  the  Holy  See  ?  Philip 
II.  was  as  much  pope  in  his  own  dominions  as  Henry  YIII.  had 
ever  been  in  his.  The  more  deeply  we  study  the  history  of  the 
popes  the  more  shall  Ave  become  convinced  that  their  hierarch- 
ical authority  was,  in  itself,  only  one  of  the  smallest  elements  of 
their  influence  even  over  the  nations,  for  it  was  by  the  religious 
orders  far  more  than  by  the  bishops  that  the  popedom  attached 
the  people  to  itself  The  indispensable  necessity  of  the  Holy 
See,  the  absolute  illegitimacy  of  all  that  does  not  flow  from  it, 
are,  like  infallibility,  quite  modern  ideas.     At  the  time  of  the 


Chap.  IV.  1562.     THE  POPEDOM  USEFUL  TO  THE  PHINCES.  817 

council  tlio  fuels  only  were  in  existence  ;  we  have  already  had 
prools,  and  wc  shall  have  belter  proois  still  in  relating  the  dis- 
cussions on  the  sacrament  ol'  orders,  that  the  right  never  had 
been  admitted. 

Thus  what  vv^e  have  called  the  moral  force  of  the  popes,  was 
the  weight  which  they  could  throw  into  the  scale  when  the  bal- 
ance of  power  in  Europe  was  destroyed,  or  threatened  with  be- 
ing destroyed.  The  pope,  by  himself,  was  of  small  account,  but 
the  pope  could  do  a  great  deal  for  his  friends.  The  princes  did 
not  like  him  ;  but  there  was  not  one  of  them  who  did  not,  with 
an  eye  to  others,  wish  to  be  on  good  terms  with  him.  The 
friendship  of  the  court  of  Home,  accordingly,  was  in  some  sort 
always  ollercd  to  the  highest  bidder.  From  time  to  time  we  sec 
one  of  the  competitors  for  it  get  impatient,  lose  temper,  and  not 
even  abstain  from  threats — witness  the  sack  of  Rome  in  1527  ; 
but,  anon,  the  tempest  subsides  ;  the  pope,  for  want  of  power  to 
take  revenge,  pardons,  and  aflairs  assume  their  regular  course. 

Finally,  Rome  was  a  market  which  the  princes  had  an  interest 
in  leaving  open,  a  temple  from  which  it  could  not  be  for  their 
advantage  that  the  sellers  could  be  thrust  out.  There  was  a 
multitude  of  things  which  they  durst  not  venture  to  take  them- 
selves, or  to  cause  to  be  given  to  them  by  their  bishops,  and 
which  could  always  be  asked  from  the  pope,  either  for  money, 
or  for  this  or  that  concession.  The  court  of  Rome  has  been 
praised  for  having  preferred  the  loss  of  England  to  consenting  to 
the  divorce  of  Henry  YIII.  Were  this  true — and  we  have  else- 
where shewn  it  was  not  so — if  Rome  condemned  that  divorce, 
how  many  others  had  she  permitted  or  pronounced,  though  quite 
as  little  justified  in  reason  or  morality  ?  Even  Innocent  III., 
after  having  shewn  towards  Phihp  Augustus  a  rigour  not  w'ant- 
ing  in  nobleness,  legitimized,  by  a  solemn  brief,  children  bom  of 
a  marriage  which  he  had  solemnly  declared  to  be  adulterous  and 
null.  People  speak  of  the  usurpations  that  Rome  has  prevented  ; 
how  many  has  she  not  sanctioned  and  commanded  ?  And  as  for 
oaths  I  Who  was  there  to  dispense  from  them,  once  that  there 
should  be  no  pope  ?  "VVlien  Regulus  set  out  on  his  return  to 
Carthage,  he  repulsed  with  scorn  the  pontifl' who  oflered  to  loose 
him  from  his  promise  ;  but  the  pontiff  of  nominal  Christendom 
had  accustomed  its  princes  to  less  scrupulosity.  In  1215,  Inno- 
cent III.  caused  it  to  be  decreed,  at  the  council  of  Lateran,  that 
"  oaths  contrary  to  the  interest  of  the  Church  and  to  the  precepts 
of  the  holy  fathers,  are  not  oaths  but  perjuries."  Armed,  conse- 
quently, with  the  power  of  annulUng  them,  shall  we  find  that  the 
popes  have  confined  themselves,  at  least,  to  the  terms  of  that  de- 
cree ?     No  ;  the  right  becomes  absolute  ;  all  oaths  come  within 


S18  HISTORY   OF    THE    COUNCIL    OF    TRENT.  Book  IV. 

their  domain.  The  most  dishonest  princes  may  ask  everything-, 
may  liope  to  obtain  everything  ;  nay,  and  of  tiiis  our  history  has 
furnished  more  than  one  example,  it  is  Rome  that  takes  the  lead, 
that  counsels  perjury,  that  oilers  absolution  for  it  beforehand. 

But  these  are  perhaps  mere  individual  instances  of  bad  faith 
or  weakness.  No ;  Whatever  the  popes  may  have  done,  they 
have  ever  kept  withm  what  their  doctors  have  openly  declared 
they  had  the  right  to  do,  and  what  their  own  laws,  on  becom- 
ing'the  laws  of  the  Church,  had  settled  in  their  favour.  Listen 
to  Gregory  IX.  :^  "Of  nothing  the  pope  may  make  something. 
He  may  render  valid  a  sentence  which  is  null,  because,  in 
the  things  that  he  desires,  his  will  takes  the  place  of  reason. 
He  can  dispense  Avith  right ;  he  can  make  injustice  to  become 
justice."  Is  it  not  clear,  after  this,  that  there  are  reasons  for  all 
sovereigns,  though  at  times  they  may  suffer  from  it,  being  inter- 
ested in  retaining  in  the  service  of  their  passions  such  a  man,  or, 
to  speak  more  correctly,  such  a  god  as  this  ? 

It  not  seldom  happened,  in  fine,  that  they -felt  their  need  of 
the  pope  against  the  clergy  themselves.  He  alone  could  efiect- 
ually  check  pretensions  contrary  to  the  royal  authority  and  to 
the  internal  peace  of  states  ;  he  alone  could  grant  authority  to 
levy  certain  imposts  on  the  wealth  of  the  Church,  that  perpetual 
object  of  coveting  on  the  part  of  the  princes.  It  was  with  him, 
in  this  respect,  as  with  those  usurers  who  are  cursed  in  whispers, 
and  often  openly  despised,  but  who  yet  are  tolerated,  because  it 
is  never  certain  that  it  may  not  be  found  necessary  to  have  re- 
course to  them. 

Even  heretics  have  at  times  had  occasion  to  apply  to  the  pope, 
and  have  not  always  been  repulsed  ;  it  has  sufficed  that  Rome, 
in  its  turn,  has  had  occasion  for  their  services.  Have  we  not 
heard  Gregory  XVI.  preach  submission  to  the  yoke  of  Russia 
as  the  duty  of  the  bishops  of  Poland?  This  was  in  1832. 
Threatened  with  having  his  states  occupied  by  the  Austrians  on 
the  one  hand,  and  the  French  on  the  other,  he  had  secretly  ac- 
cepted the  oiler  of  a  Russian  army  prepared  to  defend  him  from 
both,  and  the  brief  to  the  bishops  of  Poland,  as  has  been  dis- 
covered since,  was  the  payment  fixed  by  Russia.  It  was  pub- 
lished, accordingly,  and  Europe  for  some  days  could  not  believe 
it,  so  utterly  incredible  did  it  seem  that  a  pope  could  have  treated 
in  such  a  manner  a  Roman  Catholic  and  oppressed  people.  It 
might  have  seemed  doubtlul,  in  fact,  whether  it  were  from  St. 
Petersburg  or  Rome  that  the  document  came.  From  the  very 
first  lines  the  emperor  is  recognised  in  it  as  the  legitimate  sover- 
eign and  the  sole  soverei^rn  of  Poland.     As  for  the  nation,  it  is 

'  Decretals,  book  vii. 


ruAH.  IV.  ijo::.    THE  pope's  prospects  ijrigiiteninc.  819 

held  to  liave  ne  existence  ;  and  the  defenders  of  nationality  are 
called  hfijiix  prophets,  whose  iniscliicvousncss  und  jjcrfidy  oughx, 
in  fine,  to  be  fully  exposed.  And  so  it  proceeds.  The  conclu- 
sion is,  that  there  must  be  absolute  submission  ;  all  resistance  is 
denounced  as  a  crime.  Nor  is  this  all.  Hitherto  the  ollicial 
newspaper  of  the  Eoman  States  had  sensibly  inclined  towards 
Poland  ;  but  no  sooner  was  the  cause  lost,  and  the  brief  publish- 
ed, than  the  Polish  rebels  become  no  better  than  brigands.  One 
Would  fain  hope  that  the  heart  of  the  pope  bled  at  this,  and  con- 
tinued to  bleed  to  his  dying  day  ;  but  the  more  you  would  excuse 
him  by  saying  how  much  it  cost  him  to  hold  such  language,  the 
more  shall  we  be  warranted  to  say  that  there  is  nothing  that  may 
not  be  bought  at  Eorne.  If  the  popedom  has  sometimes,  when  its 
interests  seemed  to  require  it,  undertaken  the  cause  of  subjects 
against  kings,  what  king  can  be  adduced  who,  in  keeping  ou 
good  terms  with  it,  has  not  found  it  always  ready  to  come  to  the 
aid  of  his  despotism.,  and  to  sanction  it  in  the  name  of  heaven  ? 

Armed  with  all  the  resources  of  a  position  so  unique  in  the 
annals  of  the  world,  Pius  IV.  had  reason,  accordingly,  not  to  be 
alarmed  beyond  measure  at  the  storms  which  seemed  to  be 
brewing  at  Trent.  He  knew  that  divers  winds  might  yet  blow, 
before  the  tempest  should  come  decidedly  to  burst  at  Rome. 

He  saw  well  that  the  accord  among  the  princes  was  a  facti- 
tious accord,  and  would  be  dissolved  in  a  fcAV  days. 

The  accord  among  the  bishops  he  still  had  more  than  one 
remaining  means  of  breaking.  Several  of  them  were  already 
trembling  all  over  at  their  boldness ;  thirty  of  those  who  had 
voted  for  the  divine  right,  hastened  to  write  to  him,  as  if  to  beg 
pardon  ibr  having  obeyed  the  dictates  of  their  conscience  ;  he 
could  already  see  that  he  should  have  one  day  cause  to  congratu- 
late himself  on  having  had  so  many  adversaries,  seeing  that  there 
were  so  many  persons  who  had,  from  a  regard  to  their  own  in- 
terests, to  expiate  their  oficnce  by  future  docility.  As  for  those 
of  the  legates  who  had  appeared  to  believe  themselves  free  to  be 
not  entirely  his  agents,  he  had  only  to  frown,  and  all  idea  of  in- 
dependence on  their  part  was  dismissed.  After  having  hesi- 
tated about  giving  them  two  or  three  new  colleagues,  more  de- 
voted and  sure,  he  settled  it  in  his  mind  that  he  would  have  at 
the  council  a  secret  agent,  whose  activity  should  be  directed 
both  to  the  presidents  and  to  the  members,  and  by  whose  means 
he  should  be  kept  intbrmed  of  the  smallest  incidents  that  occur- 
red. Nor  had  he  I'ar  to  look  for  such  a  person.  Yisconti,  bishop 
of  Vintimilli,  was  eminently  fitted  for  the  post.  An  old  diplo- 
matist, a  man  of  talent,  one  who  had  all  along  been  devoted  to 
the  papal  c.au.se,  he  did  not  even  need  to  have  his  zeal  stiniu- 


J}20  HISTORY   OF  THE   COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  IV. 

lated  by  the  prospect  of  a  cardinal's  hat,  which,  however,  the 
pontifl'  took  care  to  promise  him  ;  but  as  he  had  to  do  with  men 
less  zealous  and  less  disinterested  than  himself,  his  confidential 
powers  were  almost  unlimited. 

Erelong,  without  having  ceased  to  be,  officially,  a  simple 
member  of  the  council,  he  found  himself  its  soul  and  centre. 
He  contrived  to  attach,  by  thanks  and  promises,  all  the  bishops 
who  had  sustained  the  cause  of  the  pope,  or  who  had  merely 
not  shewn  themselves  too  much  opposed  to  it ;  three  Spanish 
bishops,  who  had  not  invariably  made  common  cause  with  their 
fellow  countrymen,  were  the  special  objects  of  his  attentions. 
Those  who  vv'ould  have  most  stoutly  resisted  injunctions  or 
threats  coming  directly  from  Home,  were  seen  to  become  gradu- 
ally more  and  more  pliable  under  the  unintennitted  watching 
and  attention  of  Yisconti,  who,  without  advertising  his  powers, 
did  not  conceal  them.  The  most  ardent  would  now  think  twice 
before  allowing  a  word  to  escape  them  which  might  ruin  them 
in  the  good  opinion  of  the  pope,  and  the  thought  would  ever  re- 
cur that,  after  all,  there  would  ever  be  more  to  gain  with  him 
than  with  the  kings.  Thanks  to  the  question  of  the  communion 
in  both  kinds,  which  seemed  to  absorb  the  whole  time  of  the 
assembly,  these  changes  took  place  gradually,  in  the  shade,  and 
were  only  all  the  more  sure.  The  month  of  June  was  spent  in 
part  in  listening  to  the  opinions  of  the  divines.  The  debate  not 
having  yet  commenced  among  the  bishops,  Yisconti's  insinua- 
tions were  not  weakened  in  their  effects  by  any  new  excitement. 
So  that  able  agent  was  left  to  the  undisturbed  admiration  of  the 
progress  of  his  operations  ;  and  the  legates  to  call  hirai  their 
saviour  ;  and  the  pope  to  overwhelm  him  with  daily  eulogiums; 
and  the  council  to  return  gradually  into  the  pope's  leading 
strings.  And  the  man  who  at  Rome  received  Yisconti's  corre- 
spondence, the  man  from  whom  Yisconti  himself  took  his  orders 
for  this  vast  work  of  corruption  and  intrigues,  E,ome  placed  upon 
her  altars  by  creating  him  a  saint  I  He  was  the  pope's  nephew ; 
he  was  the  man  that  was  erelong  to  be  called  Saint  Charles 
Borromeo.  But  God  did  not  permit  that  when  that  work  was 
accomplished,  Eome  should  destroy  or  conceal  for  ever  the 
shameful  materials.  Those  letters  are  now  before  us  ;'  and  in 
them  we  have  found  all  the  strangest  and  most  scandalous  in- 
formation that  has  come  to  our  knowledge  with  respect  to  the 
last  twenty  months  and  the  close  of  the  council. 

Of  one  mind  in  declaring,  as  the  council  of  Constance  had 

'  The}'  have  been  published    at   Auisterdam  by  a   French   priest, 
Aymon,  who  became  a  Protestant  after  a  long  residence  at  Rome. 


Chap.  IV.  15G2.    THE   COMMUNION    UNDER   BOTH    KINDS.  321 

(lone,  that  the  wine  in  tlie  supper  is  not  necessary  to  the  laity, 
the  divines  were  far  enougli  troin  beiuf;  agreed  upon  either  tlie 
dogmatical  grounds,  or  the  disciplinary  grounds,  of  that  suppres- 
sion. 

And  first,  as  for  tlic  dogmatical  grounds,  some  maintained  that 
it  is  ordained  in  Scripture  ;  others,  that  it  is  only  permitted  there. 
As  ibr  us,  we  have  already  said,  among  other  observations,  that 
any  one  who  was  a  stranger  to  this  dispute,  would  find  it  no 
more  permitted  there  than  ordained,  and  would  never  suspect 
that  the  ordaining  of  it,  nor,  except  in  the  case  of  the  impossi- 
bility of  doing  otherwise,  the  permission  of  it  could  have  been 
dreamt  of.  After  having  read  in  the  institution  of  the  supper 
the  words,  "  Drink  ye  all  of  it,"  he  would  never  set  about 
searching  whether  Jesus  Christ  or  his  Apostles,  in  discourses 
where  the  subject  is  not  specially  in  question,  have  sometimes 
omitted  makinjr  mention  of  the  wine  ;  he  would  see  that  when 
a  law  has  to  be  executed,  and  the  text  of  that  law  is  anywhere 
put  down  entire,  we  must  not  look  for  it  where  it  is  merely  re- 
called and  partially  quoted.  It  is  true  that  one  of  the  council's 
divines,  D'Andrada,  a  Portuguese,  in  discussing  the  text  itself, 
contrived  to  start  a  distinction  in  it  betwixt  the  laity  and  the 
priests.  At  the  commencement  of  the  act,  related  by  the  evan- 
gelists, he  said,  the  Apostles  were  not  yet  more  than  laymen  ; 
Jesus  Christ,  accordingly,  did  not  give  them  the  bread.  But  after 
he  had  once  said — "  Do  this  in  remembrance  of  me,  they  be- 
came priests,  seeing  that  by  these  words  they  received  the  right 
to  celebrate  mass.  And  then  they  received  the  wine."  An  ex- 
planation this  which  is  not  only  absurd,  but  further  it  is  contrary 
to  the  usual  practice  of  the  Roman  Church,  seeing  that  the  offi- 
ciating priest  alone  participates  in  the  wine,  and  that  another 
priest  receiving  the  communion  from  his  hands,  receives  no  more 
than  the  laity  do. 

In  the  decree,  the  council  got  out  of  the  afTair  by  means  of  a 
clever  enough  shift.  "  He  who  said,  Except  ye  cat  the  Jlesh  of 
the  Son  of  Man,  and  drink  his  blood,  ye  have  no  life  in  you^ 
is  the  same  who  said.  If  any  man  eat  of  this  bread  he  shall  live 
for  ever.  He  who  said,  He  that  eateth  my  flesh,  and  dnnk- 
eth  my  blood,  divelleth  in  me  and  I  in  him,  is  the  same  who 
said.  The  bread  tliat  I  ivilL  give  is  ^ny  flesh''  All  which 
proves  pretty  clearly  what  was  not  contested,  to  wit,  that  both 
species  are  not  rigorously  and  materially  necessary,  hut  does  no- 
Avise  prove  that  the  Church  has  had  the  right  to  withdraw  one 
of  them,  and  to  refuse  it  even  to  those  who  ask  it. 

The  council  therefore  confined  itself,  in  this  first  part  of  the 
decree,  to  establishing  that  Jesus  Christ  had  not  represented  the 


S22  HISTORY   OF  THE   COUNCIL    OF  TRENT.  Book  IV. 

two  species  as  absolutely  necessary.  It  dared  not  affirm  that 
there  existed  any  doctrinal  motive  for  maintaining  the  depriva- 
tion in  question. 

As  for  disciplinary  motives,  we  have  indicated  one  of  these 
already  :  the  enhancement,  by  a  privilege  so  unique  and  divine, 
of  the  ambitious  greatness  of  the  priesthood.  This  motive  was 
the  greatest,  the  tirst,  one  may  say,  the  only  one ;  beyond  that, 
nothing  but  the  most  wretched  pleas  have  been  urged.  In  the 
decree,  however,  it  durst  not  be  mentioned.  The  Protestants 
w^ere  not  the  only  persons  that  murmured  at  the  barriers  thus 
audaciously  raised  between  the  people  and  the  clergy  ;  this  was 
already  the  most  tottering  of  them  all,  and  to  have  restored  it 
under  this  form,  would  have  stimulated  Europe  to  give  the  final 
blow  to  its  existence.  Other  grounds  had  to  be  sought,  there- 
fore, those  especially  suggested  by  the  real  or  imaginary  incon- 
veniences of  the  opposite  practice,  in  order  to  give  a  shadow  of 
necessity  to  the  denial  of  the  cup.  Down  to  Luther's  time,  peo- 
ple had  at  times  amused  themselves  with  the  caricature  of  a 
rude  multitude  rushing  to  cups  full  of  wine  ;  since  Luther's 
time,  since  there  might  be  seen  in  Germany,  England,  Switzer- 
land, as  there  may  be  seen  at  the  present,  communions  in  which 
thousands  of  communicants  have  merely  wet  their  lips  at  the 
common  cup — it  has  been  found  impossible  to  persist  in  such 
old  fables  of  drunkenness  and  scandal,  as  certain  parish  priests, 
we  are  told,  contrive  still  to  introduce  into  their  pulpit  addresses, 
but  which  they  would  rather  avoid  repeating,  except  to  the  igno- 
rant and  simple.  It  was  in  the  minutest  details,  therefore,  that 
reasons  had  to  be  sought  for.  With  whatever  respect  the  faith- 
ful may  take  the  cup  into  their  hands,  or  merely  touch  it  with 
their  lips,  how  make  sure  against  the  horrible  impropriety  of 
letting  fall  a  drop  of  Christ's  blood,  perhaps  even  upsetting  the 
cup  ?  And  if  that  drop  should  fall  on  the  profane  hand  of  a 
layman  ?  if  it  w^ere  to  remain  attached  to  one  of  the  hairs  of  his 
beard,  or  the  lining  of  his  coat  !  All  these  and  many  other 
reasons  were  urged  in  full  council,  and  it  clearly  followed,  accord- 
ing to  the  speakers,  that  the  Church  had  done  well  in  taking 
away  the  cup  ;  but  what  followed  still  more  clearly  was,  either 
that  the  Christians  of  primitive  times  were  little  scrupulous  as 
to  acts  of  sacrilege,  seeing  that  they  risked,  from  mere  wanton- 
ness, committing  so  many — or  that  this  wine  was  in  their  eyes 
wine,  very  sacred,  no  doubt,  considering  what  it  figured,  but 
not  so  as  that  there  would  be  the  smallest  harm  in  spilling  and 
profaning  a  drop  of  it  involuntarily.  Thus,  although  the  coun- 
cil had  decided  on  making  not  only  canons,  but  chapters  of  doc- 
trine susceptible  of  every  kind  of  development,  here  it  deemed  it 


Chap.  IV.  1562.      NO   REASONS   IN    THE   DECREE,   AND   WHY  ?  323 

more  piiuleut  to  enter  into  no  detail,  and  to  declare  simply  that 
the  Church  had  been  "  moved  by  grave  and  just  motives."^ 

Much  had  been  said,  also,  in  tiiose  deliberations,  about  the 
danger  of  leading  people  to  believe  that  there  was  a  more  com- 
plete communion  under  both  kinds  than  under  one,  an  idea  con- 
trary to  the  Church's  teaching ;  especially  since  the  council  of 
Constance,  wdiere  it  had  been  decreed  that  the  Saviour  was  fully 
and  entirely  present  under  each  kind.  This  last  opinion,  too, 
formed  the  subject  of  a  chapter.  Nobody  contradicted  it ;  but 
little  as  they  had  dived  into  its  depths,  how  many  objections  did 
the  council  proceed  to  start  I  And  how  prudent  was  it  to  omit 
all  explanation — all  argument.  "  Although  our  Redeemer,  in 
that  last  supper,  instituted  and  handed  down  to  his  Apostles 
this  sacrament  in  two  kinds,  yet  it  must  be  confessed  that  Jesus 
Christ,  whole  and  entire,  and  a  true  sacrament,  are  taken  under 
either  kind  only.'"^  Such  is  the  whole.  It  must  he  covfcssed. 
Reasons  there  are  none.  And  yet  w^e  are  still,  let  us  remember, 
in  a  chapter  that  treats  of  doctrine,  that  is  to  say,  one  of  those  in 
w^hich,  when  the  councils  had  reasons  to  produce,  it  gave  them. 
It  felt  itself  in  presence  of  one  of  those  difficulties  wdiich  grow- 
larger  under  examination,  and  where  the  bottom  deepens  in  pro- 
portion as  the  eye  penetrates  into  the  abyss.  Multiplied  by  this 
iresh  surcharge,  all  the  objections  directed  against  the  real  pres- 
ence form  so  menacing  a  host  that  it  is  not  given  to  all  men  to 
contemplate  them  without  trepidation.  Let  us  contemplate  a 
priest  engaged  in  saying  mass.  You  see  him  put  the  wafer  to 
his  mouth,  and  you  are  told,  "It  is  the  body  of  Jesus  Christ. 
He  is  there  whole  and  entire  under  the  bread,"  A  few  moments 
afterwards  the  priest  drinks,  "  It  is  the  blood  of  Jesus  Christ," 
it  is  added  ;  "  it  is  his  body  also,  his  body  whole  and  entire," — 
Twice  entire  ?  Yes,  The  priest  then  has  eaten  it  tw^ice  ?  No, 
He  has  eaten  and  drunk  nothing  more  than  those  of  the  faithful 
to  whom  he  has  given  the  host.  But  it  is  spiritually,  no  doubt, 
that  he  lias  eaten  and  drunk  no  more  than  they  ?  Spiritually 
and  materially.  These  tw^o  bodies  were  the  same.  Those  thousand, 
those  two  thousand  bodies  w-hich  you  have  seen  him  distribute, 
were  also  the  same,  ahvays  the  same,  and  always  whole  and  entire 
— whole  and  entire  under  each  kind,  wdiole  and  entire  under  each 
fraction  of  the  kind,  lor  this  also  is  the  teaching  of  the  Church, 
although  the  council  liked  better  not  to  say  it.    This  new  absurdity 


'   Gravibus  et  juslis  causis  adducta. 

'  Qaamvis  redemptor  noster  in  suprema  illacoena,  hoc  sacramentum 
in  duabu-s  speciet)us  instituerit  et  apostolis  tradiderit,  tamen  fatendum 
esse,  etiam  sub  altera  tantum  specie  totum  atqiie  integrnni  Christum, 
verumque  sacramentum  siuni. 


'624:  HISTORY   OF  THE   COUNCIL  OF   TRENT.  Book  IV, 

has  not  even  the  merit  of  being  based,  hke  the  real  presence,  on 
the  words  of  the  institution,  "  This  is  my  body,  said  Christ,  which 
is  broken  for  you."  If  it  be  everywhere  and  always  entire,  what 
is  made  of  these  last  words  ?  We  admit  that  one  can  hardly  stop 
there.  If  the  wafer  is  the  body  of  Christ,  it  would  be  a  hideous 
and  horrible  thing  to  say  that  it  is  broken,  reduced  to  pieces,  and 
then  eaten  member  after  member.  It  is  clear  that  the  sole  way 
of  escape  from  this  abominable  consequence,  was  to  declare  it 
always  entire.  Thus,  let  an  infidel  set  himself  to  pound  a  con- 
secrated wafer,  and  the  Saviour  will  be  present  as  many  times 
as  there  are  particles  in  that  white  dust.  Without  going  so  far, 
make  as  many  suppositions  as  you  please  :  if  they  be  not  all  false, 
if  the  very  principle  of  them  be  not  absurd — they  will  necessa- 
rily be  all  true.  A  consecrated  wafer  falls  and  breaks  in  two. 
You  had  but  one  body  of  the  Saviour — you  gather  up  two.  The 
Church  prescribes  your  swallowing  the  whole  wafer.  When  be- 
tween your  teeth  you  divide  it ;  only  one  body  was  given  to  you, 
you  swallow  two.  One  has  a  vase  full  of  consecrated  wafers. 
There  are  twenty ;  twenty  bodies  of  Christ.  This  vase  gets  a 
slight  shake  ;  some  of  the  wafers  are  broken ;  and,  behold,  the 
body  is  there  not  twenty,  but  thirty  times.  Another  shake,  and 
it  will  be  there  forty  times ;  another  .  .  .  Enough,  enough  I  Your 
heart  bleeds  to  find,  thanks  to  the  doctors  of  Rome,  so  sacrile- 
gious a  resemblance  between  Christ's  supper  and  the  tricks  of  a 
juggler.  "  Pastors,"  says  the  Roman  Catechism,  "  ought  to  be 
very  reserved  in  explaining  how  the  body  of  Jesus  is  whole  and 
entire  under  the  smallest  part  of  the  kinds."  Yes,  indeed,  let 
them  be  very  reserved  in  ex2)laining  it ;  let  them  be  so  above 
all  in  thinking  of  it,  for  did  they  set  themselves  to  deduce  con- 
sequences from  it,  they  would  quickly  find  that  they  could  no 
longer  believe  it.^ 

Another  difficulty  which  it  is  not  easy  to  avoid,  and  about 
which  the  divines  long  disputed,  is  found  in  the  question  whether 
there  be  more  spiritual  benefits  to  be  had  under  both  kinds  than 
under  one  only.  On  the  one  hand,  it  is  very  difficult  to  main- 
tain that  two  things  of  equal  value  do  not  comprise,  when  com- 
bined, more  than  each  does  separately;  on  the  other  hand,  the 
priest  would  give  great  offence  were  he  to  avow  that  there  are 
spiritual  benefits  of  which  he  knowingly  deprives  you,  means  of 
salvation  which  he  refuses  you,  he,  the  very  man  who  is  charged 
with  the  concerns  of  your  salvation.     To  cut  the  matter  short, 

^  The  author  elsewliere  shrewdly  suggests  (Book  III.)  that  the  doc- 
trine of  our  Lord's  entire  presence  in  the  host  or  wafer,  became  neces- 
sary in  order  to  the  justifying  of  divine  adoration  being  paid  to  that 
iTinterinI  object. — Tr. 


Chap.  IV.  15f.2.     THE    SPANIARDS   RESIST   ALL    CONCESSION.  325 

it  was  proposed  that  it  slioiild  be  merely  said  that  lie  that  com- 
inuuicates,  it  matters  not  how,  receives  Jesus  Christ,  the  fountain 
of  all  spiritual  beneiits  ;  but  it  remained  still  undecided  whether 
this  fountain  be  more  or  less  abundant,  according  as  the  Supper 
has  been  taken  under  one  kind  or  under  both.  At  that  point 
they  stopt ;  some  bishops  begged  in  vain  that  the  matter  might 
be  better  explained.  It  was  voted  that  the  communion  by  bread 
alone  does  not  deprive  the  believer  "  of  any  grace  necessary  for 
salvation."  It  was  acknowledged,  then,  that  he  was  deprived  of 
something  ;  consequently  the  council  overstepped  not  the  natural 
and  legitimate  rights  of  the  Church,  which  cannot  be  supposed 
to  go  so  far  as  the  refusal  to  the  people  of  any  one  whatever  of 
the  spiritual  favours  ofiered  by  religion,  but  those  even  which 
had  been  arrogated  in  a  previous  chapter,  where  it  had  been  said 
that  the  Church  could  alter  tchat  docs  not  affect  the  substance 
of  the  sacrament}  If  the  withdrawal  of  the  cup  deprives  us  of 
any  spiritual  benefit  whatever,  even  though  not  indispensable, 
not  necessary  to  salvation — the  substance  of  the  sacrament  can- 
not be  considered  as  intact,  since  its  efiects  are  not  strictly  the 
same. 

Satisfied  with  this  unanimity,  which  was  obtained,  however, 
only  by  leaving  all  that  was  most  difficult  in  the  shade,  the  le- 
gates seemed  more  and  more  disposed  to  give  way  in  the  affair 
of  the  cup.  Doctrine  was  safe  ;  discipline,  therefore,  might  shew 
an  accommodating  spirit.  On  this  occasion  it  was  from  the  body 
of  the  clergy  that  opposition  was  to  arise. 

The  pope  had  guessed  aright  that  the  bishops  would  not  long 
remain  united  ;  and  the  issue  proved  that  he  had  acted  prudently 
in  trusting  to  their  natural  antipathies,  while  blunt  opposition 
would  only  have  had  the  effect  of  keeping  them  agreed. 

No  sooner  were  the  first  words  uttered  in  favour  of  conceding 
the  cup,  than  the  Spaniards  exclaimed,  as  if  the  proposition  were 
not  only  inopportune,  but  absurd.  They  laid  hold  of  all  those 
decrees  which  had  been  made  for  the  very  purpose  of  facilitating 
that  concession,  by  keeping  the  point  of  doctrine  intact,  for  the 
purpose  of  combating  it ;  and,  viewed  in  that  light,  their  argu- 
ments were  not  amiss.  "  Is  it  logical,"  they  said,  "  that  just  as 
we  have  proclaimed  the  real  presence  under  each  species,  we 
should  concede  what  is  demanded  by  those  who  do  not  believe 
that  dogma  ?  The  generality  of  the  faithful  will  look  to  the 
fact  not  to  words.  They  will  not  comprehend  how  an  act  added 
to  the  supper,  cannot  add  anything  to  it ;  they  will  conclude  that 
hitherto  they  have  had  only  the  half  of  the  sacrament  given  to 
them."     Next,  drawn  perforce  into  considerations  which   the 

^  Salv.a  illonini  substantia. 


326  HISTORY   OF  THE    COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  IV. 

papal  party  durst  hardly  hint  at,  "  The  suppression  of  the  cup," 
said  they,  "  passes  for  being  a  law  of  the  Church,  not  a  law  of 
God.  Be  it  so.  You  may  repeal  it  then  without  touching  any- 
thing that  is  essential.  Grant  that  also.  But  there  are  many 
other  things  besides,  that  are  not  God's  laws,  and  on  which, 
nevertheless,  you  could  not  make  concessions  without  trenching 
deeply  on  the  Church.  The  cehbacy  of  the  priesthood,  the  wor- 
ship of  images,  the  invocation  of  saints  —  these,  too,  are  things 
that  have  been  established,  not  by  Jesus  Christ,  but  by  it.  After 
conceding  the  cup,  what  ground  will  there  be  for  refusing  to  re- 
form the  rest  ?" 

None,  in  fact;  but  there  was  both  courage  and  candour  in 
avowing  thus  openly  how  this  whole  dispute  was  about  a  small 
matter.  It  is  true  that  this  small  matter  was  much  in  the  eyes 
of  the  Spanish  bishops.  None  believed  more  than  they  in  the 
omnipotence  of  the  Church  ;  and  it  was  chiefly  on  that  account 
that  they  believed  much  less  than  others  in  that  of  the  Holy  See. 
They  renewed  at  all  the  sessions  their  old  demand,  to  have  added 
to  the  council's  titles  that  of  representative  of  the  universal 
Church,  and  the  {■axmrn^  projionentibus  legatis  always  drew  from 
them  warmer  and  warmer  reclamations. 

Although  it  was  evident  that  it  was  from  no  desire  to  pay 
court  to  the  pope,  that  they  thus  came  in  aid  of  the  secret  wishes 
of  the  papal  party,  which  lent  itself  only  from  compulsion  to  the 
concession  of  the  cup,  it  could  not  fail  to  put  matters  on  a  better 
footing  between  them  and  the  Italians.  For  the  first  time  the 
assembly  was  found  less  liberal  than  the  legates,  and  a  large 
majority  ranged  themselves  against  the  concession.  In  Germany 
it  was  said  that  this  result  had  been  foreseen,  and  that  never 
would  the  pope  have  alloAved  the  proposition  to  be  made  had  he 
not  been  sure  of  its  rejection. 

It  was  a  point,  nevertheless,  on  which  it  was  not  enough  for 
him  to  have  a  mere  numerical  majority.  The  ambassadors  of 
France  and  the  empire,  ever  united  in  soliciting  the  cup,  were 
joined  by  Baumgartner,  the  Bavarian  ambassador,  an  eloquent 
and  active  man,  almost  a  Lutheran  in  principle,  and  altogether 
a  Lutheran  in  hardihood.  From  his  first  audience  (27th  June), 
he  had  demanded  the  concession,  and  that  not  as  a  favour,  or  as 
a  thing  that  might  continue  to  be  refused,  but  as  the  object  of  a 
desire  so  universally  felt,  that  it  were  imprudence  and  madness 
to  disappoint  it.  The  other  ambassadors  then  returned  to  the 
charge ;  first,  those  of  the  emperor,  in  a  memorial  on  the  accusa- 
tion of  heresy  which  some  prelates  had  not  spared  them ;  next, 
those  of  the  king  of  France,  in  a  paper  in  which  the  question  of 
the  cup  was  resumed  in  detail,  with  great  force  and  perspicuity, 


CllAP.IV.  1M2.       EMBARRASSMENT   OF   THE   LEGATES.  327 

and  not  without  such  bold  expressions  as  were  worthy  of  the  dis- 
courses of  Pibrac.  "  Instead  ol'  shewing  so  much  zeal  for  human 
commandments,"  said  they,  "  why  is  tliere  not  a  little  more 
shown  for  those  of  God,  and  a  reformation  of  abuses  seriously  set 
about  I"  Accordinj^ly,  "  These  gentlemen  \vould  absolutely  make 
themselves  Lutherans  with  the  permission  of  the  council,"  said 
Doctor  Foriero. 

Instead  of  making  the  legates  determine  to  propose  the  con- 
cession, these  urgent  calls  decided  their  change  of  opinion.  They 
saw  clearly  that,  this  pohit  once  obtained,  farther  demands  would 
follow  ;  Lansac,  a  little  too  frank  for  treating  with  Italians,  left 
them  no  room  for  doubt  on  that  head.  But  as  they  could  nei- 
ther all  at  once  retract  their  promise,  nor  openly  make  the  wish 
of  the  majority  a  pretext  for  doing  so,  after  having  made  so  little 
account  of  it  on  other  occasions,  they  told  the  ambassadors  that 
the  session  was  too  near  its  close  ;  that  with  so  few  days  before 
them  they  could  not  undertake  to  modify  the  opinions  of  the  as- 
sembly, and  that,  consequently,  the  surest  course  was  to  postpone 
the  question  to  another  session.  The  ambassadors  begged  that 
the  sittings  might  rather  be  prolonged  for  some  days,  but  this 
they  could  not  obtain.  Meanwhile,  the  drafting  of  the  decrees 
proved  so  laborious,  that  the  legates  had  more  than  once  reason 
to  apprehend  that  they  would  not  be  ready  by  the  1 6th  of  July, 
the  day  that  had  been  fixed.  On  the  evening  of  the  loth,  the 
deliberations  were  still  going  on,  and  the  meeting  rose  even  be- 
fore the  members  had  come  to  a  definite  understanding. 

The  next  day  (session  XXI,  July  16,  lo62),  in  fact,  as  the 
members  were  entering  the  cathedral,  and  when  mass  was  about 
to  commence,  the  bishops  were  extremely  surprised  to  hear  that 
the  legates  meant  to  propose  to  them  that  the  first  chapter  should 
be  drawn  up  anew.  It  was  then  discovered  that  two  of  the 
pope's  divines,  Salmeron  and  Torres,  after  having  precedently 
maintained,  but  without  success,  that  the  command  to  commu- 
nicate under  both  kinds,  should  be  held  applicable  to  priests 
alone,  had  returned  to  the  charge  before  cardinals  Hosius  and 
Madrucci,  the  one  a  legate,  the  other  bishop  of  Trent ;  that  by 
their  means  they  had  gained  the  legates,  and  that  their,  opinion 
was  about  to  pass,  saving  approbation,  into  the  decree  which 
had  been  thought  to  be  fixed  the  preceding:  evenino:.  "  Althouofh 
this  revised  draft,"  says  Pallavicini,  "  was  welcomed  by  a  large 
number,  it  was  rejected  by  a  majority,  particularly  the  bishop 
of  Modena,  and  the  archbishop  of  Granada.  The  latter,  who 
was  well  acquainted  with  the  writings  of  St.  Thomas  Aquinas, 
hastily  sent  for  the  summa  theologice  of  that  author,  and  there 
found  the  passage  wliere  the  holy  doctor  extends  the  words  of 


328  HISTORY   OF   THE   COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  IV. 

Jesus  Christ  in  the  supper,  even  to  the  laity,  because  he  makes 
use  of  them  to  prove  that  all  the  faithful  are  obliged  to  receive 
the  eucharist.  '  Upon  this  there  arose  a  great  deal  of  discussion, 
and  the  new  draft  was  withdrawn. 

This  point,  accordingly,  has  remained  undecided  ;  and  in  sup- 
port of  what  we  have  said  above,  that  there  were  many  besides, 
the  omission  of  which  may  be  thought  strange,  we  might  simply 
transcribe  what  Pallavicini  reports  of  the  objections  raised  by 
those  same  divines  against  all  the  chapters  of  the  decree.  In 
the  first,  as  we  have  seen,  they  had  complained  that  the  council 
had  avoided  saying  whether  Jesus  Christ,  in  the  supper,  meant 
to  address  himself  to  priests  alone.  They  wished,  moreover,  that 
before  taking,  at  the  sixth  chapter  of  St.  John,  the  six  passages 
adduced  for  establishing  the  communion  under  one  kind,  they 
should  begin  by  declaring  that  it  is  of  the  sacramental,  and  not 
of  the  spiritual  communion,  as  many  doctors  have  thought,  and 
as  the  Protestants  teach,  that  our  Lord  speaks  in  that  chapter. 
Farther  on,  they  found  the  Church's  authority  too  feebly  estab- 
lished by  these  words  of  St.  Paul,  "  Let  a  man  so  account  of  us 
as  of  the  ministers  of  Christ,  and  stewards  of  the  mysteries  of 
God."  Farther  still,  in  the  article  concerning  the  non-necessity 
of  the  eucharist  for  children,  this,  according  to  them,  was  not  de- 
monstrated by  its  being  said,  that  children  having  received  grace 
by  baptism,  and  not  being  in  a  capacity  to  have  lost  it,  had  no 
need  of  receiving  it  anew.  It  might  be  replied,  they  said,  that 
it  could  not  but  be  profitable  to  them  to  have  it  augmented. 
And  they  concluded  that  all  these  articles  had  great  need  of 
being  revised.  What  did  they  obtain  of  all  they  wanted  ?  Why, 
only  a  new  uncertainty.  In  reporting  the  above  passage  from 
St.  Paul,  there  had  been  put  down  first,  "As  St.  Paul  has  clearly 
testified  in  these  words."  After  their  remarks  on  the  insuffi- 
ciency of  that  passage,  this  was  thought  more  than  durst  be  ven- 
tured on,  and  the  sentence  was  made  to  run,  "  As  St.  Paul  ap- 
'peai's  to  have  clearly  testified."^  It  was  incontestably  Aviser  to 
do  so  ;  and  the  decree,  in  short,  is  less  remote  from  the  truth 
than  it  would  have  been  by  becoming  more  positive ;  but,  finally, 
without  our  stopping  either  to  approve  or  to  impugn  what  the 
two  doctors  wanted  to  place  there,  let  us  confine  ourselves  to 
noting  with  them  what  is  not  decided,  and  what  it  might,  never- 
theless, have  seemed  impossible  that  a  council,  treating  the  sub- 
ject in  all  its  depth,  should  have  dared  not  to  decide. 

These  obscurities  and  these  blanks  found  meanwhile  beyond 
the  council  critics  who  were  more  disposed  than  ever  to  take 
them  up  and  deduce  from  them,  as  militating  against  the  pre- 
'  Non  obscure  visiis  est  innuisse. 


Chap.  IV   1DC2.  PITIFUL   RESULTS   ARRIVED   AT.  329 

tended  inspiration  of  that  body,  all  the  iinfavourahlc  conseqiicnc  s 
Avhich  its  timidity  and  irresolution  in  dealinj^  with  certain  poinl.s 
have  seemed  to  ns  to  snsrgest.  This  convocation  at  Trent  had 
never  beli)rc  excited  so  much  interest  and  curiosity  in  Europe, 
except  perhaps  at  the  time  of  its  first  being  assembled.  There 
were  now  nearly  two  hiuidred  bishops  present.  In  E.oman 
Catholic  countries  it  began  to  be  looked  upon  as  a  general  coun- 
cil. Although  this  was  still  a  fiction,  seeing  that  several  coun- 
tries were  not  at  all,  or  scarcely  at  all  represented  in  it,  the  fic- 
tion began  to  be  justified  by  the  augmentation  of  the  total  num- 
ber present.  The  attention  of  Europe,  accordinglv,  had  increased 
in  proportion  ;  four^  sessions  also  had  been  held  merely  j"'^ 
forma,  and  had  thus  helped  to  turn  men's  regards  by  anticipa- 
tion to  what  was  to  be  done  in  the  fifth.  It  is  a  curious  circum- 
stance connected  with  the  council  of  Trent,  that  out  of  twenty- 
five  sessions /aZ(?/tcc?«.  had  no  result. 

After  having  been  looked  forward  to  with  such  feelings,  the 
decrees  of  the  twenty-first,  which  had  now  been  held,  could  not 
but  appear  pitiful  enough.  For  to  what,  in  fact,  did  they 
amount  ?  Nine  disciplinary  decrees,^  some  of  which  we  have 
acknowledged  were  very  wise,  but  which  bore  only  on  details, 
and  nowise  responded  to  the  desires  w^iich  w'e  have  seen  were 
strongly  felt  in  all  parts  of  Europe  ;  four  doctrinal  articles,  more 
important,  certainly,  yet  in  which  the  council  had  hardly  done 
more  than  repeat  the  w^ell-knowai  decisions  of  Constance  and 
Florence.  Instead  of  giving  more  completeness  and  clearness 
to  those  older  deliverances  of  doctrine  now  no  longer  sufficient, 
since  the  Reformation,  for  the  guidance  of  the  Romanist  doctors 
in  the  anti-Protestant  controversy,  one  might  have  thought  it 
had  been  the  council's  object  to  reproduce  them  as  vaguely  as 
possible.  The  Protestants  said,  as  is  sufficiently  demonstrated 
by  the  history  of  the  debates,  that  briefness  had  been  adopted 
only  because  the  council  durst  not  venture  upon  great  length  ; 
the  Roman  Catholics  who  could  not  admit,  or  at  least  could  not 
allow  it  to  be  seen  that  they  admitted  a  similar  motive,  com- 
plained, nevertheless,  and  in  some  countries  quite  openly,  of  being 
condemned  by  the  council's  authority  to  remain  ignorant  of  so 
many  things.  Our  preceding  observations,  in  fact,  might  furnish 
three  or  four  very  simple  questions  to  w-hich  a  priest,  w^hen  in- 
terrogated by  one  of  the  faithful  to  whom  he  is  about  to  give  the 
communion,  cannot,  if  he  would  hold  to  the  decree,  absolutely 
reply.  Is  it  by  divine  right  that  the  priest  alone  communicates 
under  both  lands  ?     Is  it  the  supper  that  is  spoken  of  in  the  sixth 

^  18th  January,  '26th  Fehruary,  14tli  i\Iay,  4tlx  Jiuie,  1562. 
2  Tliose  that  liad  been  pi*epared  for  the  10th  session. 


330  HISTORY    OF   THE   COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  IV. 

chapter  of  St.  John  ?  What  are  the  faithful  made  to  forego  by 
the  refusal  of  the  cup  ?  To  all  this,  if  the  priest  declines  giving 
any  reply  but  such  as  he  is  sure  is  the  right  one,  he  must  give 
none  at  all,  for  the  council  has  given  none. 

Filially,  there  were  in  the  form  of  the  decree  inconsistencies 
which  were  not  allowed  to  pass  without  remark. 

Thus  in  the  second  canon  an  anathema  is  pronounced  on  who- 
soever shall  affirm  that  the  Church  had  no  justifiable  motives 
for  giving  the  bread  only  to  the  laity.  Now  the  anathema  not 
being  usually  pronounced  except  in  questions  of  faith  and  of 
divine  right,  it  could  not  regularly  figure  in  an  article  where 
'■justifiable  motives"  were  spoken  of,  that  is  to  say,  where  the 
point  of  view  from  which  the  question  was  contemplated  was 
that  of  human  right.  Had  the  council  begun  by  declaring,  as 
Salmeron  desired,  that  the  depriving  the  laity  of  the  cup  had 
been  ordained  by  God,  then,  but  then  only,  could  there  be  room 
for  the  anathema. 

The  same  remark  applied  to  the  article  where  it  is  said  that 
the  supper  is  not  necessary  to  children.  The  idea,  in  our  view, 
is  quite  correct ;  but  as  the  Church  had  long  taught  or  toler- 
ated the  contrary,  it  was  evidently  not  a  case  for  the  application 
of  the  anathema.  Nine  passages  were  found  in  St.  Augustine 
where  he  has  declared  in  favour  of  the  custom  of  giving  the 
supper  to  children  ;  there  are  even  two  in  which  he  compares 
the  necessity  of  the  eucharist  with  that  of  baptism,  resting, 
which  is  more,  on  a  letter  of  Pope  Innocent  I.  If  this  do  not 
prove  that  he  viewed  the  obligation  of  communicating  at  every 
period  of  life,  as  obligatory  in  point  of  doctrine,  it  proves  at  least 
that  he  was  far  from  anathematizing  those  who  took  that  view 
of  it. 

As  for  disciplinary  decrees,  nothing  could  be  said  of  them  be- 
yond the  council,  that  had  not  been  said  already  within  it. 
Besides  their  general  insufficiency,  people  remarked  the  return 
to  the  old  subterfuge  of  giving  to  the  bishops,  for  the  sake  of 
maintaining  intact  the  rights  of  the  pope,  the  title  of  delegates 
of  the  Holy  See  ;  and  that  while  there  was  accorded  to  them 
also,  as  if  by  favour,  rights  which  ought  never  to  have  been  taken 
from  them,  there  was  given  to  them  one  manifestly  usurped  from 
the  civil  power,  that  of  imposing  subsidies  for  the  keeping  up  of 
churches  too  poor  in  laud  or  in  other  sources  of  income.  "  We 
can  well  see,"  wrote  Lansac  on  the  19th  of  July,  "that  these 
folks  will  hear  of  nothing  prejudicial  to  the  profit  and  authority 
of  the  Court  of  Rome  ;  and,  what  is  more,  the  pope  finds  him- 
self so  entirely  master  of  this  council,  having  the  greater  number 
of  voices  at  his  discretion,  that  many  of  liis  pensionaries,  not- 


Chap.  IV.  1502.  INTRIGUES   OF   TIIK    I'OPE.  831 

witlislamling  the  remonstrances  the  emperor's  ambassadors  and 
we  may  make  about  anything,  do  just  as  they  please  with  respect 
to  it." 

Of  this  a  very  striking  proof  M'as  ere  long  to  be  given. 

Altliough  a  special  decree  had  kept  the  concession  of  the  cup 
among  the  points  that  were  to  be  examined  at  the  earliest,  it  was 
remarked  that  not  a  word  was  said  about  it  in  the  programme 
of  the  following  session. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  king  of  Spain  had  written  to  his  bish- 
ops, according  to  all  appearance  at  the  pope's  solicitation,  that 
they  should  allow  the  question  of  residence  to  drop.  He  com- 
mended them  for  their  zeal  in  the  affair  of  the  divine  right,  but 
exhorted  them  at  the  same  time  to  abstahi  from  all  fresh 
attempts  to  get  a  decree  passed  in  conformity  with  their  views, 
and,  in  particular,  from  all  protestation  against  what  should  be 
done. 

Once  assured  of  the  neutrality  of  the  king  of  Spain,  Pius  IV. 
began  to  make  open  enough  efforts  to  have  the  Avhole  question  of 
residence  referred  to  himself,  and  not  only  that,  but  the  question 
of  the  cup  also.  In  sending  an  order  to  the  legates  thencefor- 
ward to  give  this  turn  to  all  their  endeavours,  he  authorized  them 
to  give  both  the  ambassadors  and  the  independent  bishops  the 
assurance  of  a  speedy  and  serious  reform  in  the  entire  organiza- 
tion of  his  court ;  a  compensation  a  hundred  times  promised,  a 
hundred  times  eluded,  and  the  promise  of  which  could  seduce 
only  those  who  were  seduced  already. 

In  the  meantime  the  programme  had  been  accepted.  The 
subject  now  to  be  considered  was  the  eucharist,  not  as  a  sacra- 
ment but  a  sacrifice.  In  other  terms  then,  it  was  the  question 
of  the  mass,  with  its  preliminaries,  its  accessories,  and  its  conse- 
quences. The  thirteen  points  proposed  for  discussion  were  those 
that  had  been  prepared  under  Julius  II.  shortly  before  the  second 
dissolution  of  the  council.  The  council  ventured  accordingly, 
after  five  sessions,  on  accepting  the  heritage  of  sixteen  anterior 
sessions.  That  which  had  just  taken  place  served  only  to  pre- 
pare the  way.  The  communion  under  both  kinds  had  been  spoken 
of  at  it,  but  without  in  any  way  recalhng  the  decree  of  1551  on 
transubstantiation.  Even  in  resuming  the  consideration  of  the 
thirteen  articles  prepared  ten  years  before,  care  was  still  taken 
to  avoid  throwing  too  visible  a  bridge  of  connection  between  the 
two  councils.  It  was  not  until  the  session  followinir,  about  a 
year  after,  that  the  old  order  was  openly  resumed,  and  the  con- 
tinuation frankly  decided  upon — if  one  can  call  frankness  what 
appears  only  after  so  long,  so  persevering,  so  imperturbable  a 
course  of  dissimulation. 


CHAPTEE    V. 

(1562.) 

SESSION    XXII.        IS    THE    MASS    A    SACRIFICE?        DECREES    ENACTED 

AMID  POLITICAL   INTRIGUES. 

The  mass  —  Definitions  and  principles  —  A  first  and  a  wide  breacli — 
Can  there  be  any  parity  between  the  mass  and  Jesus  Christ's  sac- 
rifice— In  remeyyihrance  of  vie — Offered  once — "What  we  ask  of  every 
sincere  Roman  Catholic — How  people  come  to  believe  everything — 
To  admit  that  the  mass  is  not  incontestably  in  the  Bible  amounts  to 
the  admission  that  it  is  not  there  at  all — Serious  difficulty — To  finish 
as  speedil}''  as  possible — Recriminations — The  pope's  new  precautions 
— "  It  is  thus  that  the  king  and  the  world  are  deceived" — Splitting 
of  parties — The  small  matters — Three  opinions  on  the  question  of  the 
cup — Conditions  laid  down — Majority  against  the  concession — Pro- 
ject of  referring  it  to  the  Pope — Frictions  of  oil — ^Sundry  wise  regu- 
lations—  Absolute  prohibition  of  receiving  payment  for  masses  — 
Doctrinal  canons  —  Do  this  —  Long  debates — Masses  for  temporal 
wants — Masses  in  honor  of  the  saints — Private  masses — A  little  water 
in  the  wine — Worship  in  Latin — Scriptural  objections  —  Historical 
objections  — True  motives  —  TS\'enty-second  Session  —  Minorities — 
Submission  and  silence. 

Our  preceding  remarks  on  the  supper  enable  us  to  dispense 
with  long  details  in  speaking  of  the  practical  errors  with  which 
the  Roman  Church  has  surrounded  it  in  the  mass.  We  shall 
confine  ourselves  to  some  of  the  chief  of  these. 

The  communion,  in  our  view,  is  the  commemoration  of  Jesus 
Christ's  sacrifice. 

The  mass,  according  to  the  Roman  Church,  is  that  sacrifice 
itself  renewed,  reproduced,  by  a  mysterious  act  of  God's  poM'er 
and  the  Saviour's  goodness,  as  often  as  a  priest  pronounces  the 
sacramental  words  over  the  wafer.  The  consecrated  wafer  is 
not  only  the  body  of  Jesus  Christ,  it  is  Jesus  Christ  upon  the 
cross,  Jesus  Christ  dying  for  us. 

Among  the  objections  started  by  this  doctrine  there  are  several 
to  which  no  reply  is  ordinarily  made  but  as  in  regard  to  tran- 
substantiation,  by  saying  that  it  is  a  mysteiy,  and  that  there  is 
nothing  impossible  to  God.  Here,  then,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
real  presence,  let  us  carefully  distinguish  that  which  is  contrary 
to  reason  from  that  which  is  simply  above  reason.      However 


Chap.  V.  15G2.     DOES   THE  MASS    REPRODUCE  THE   SUITER?  333 

great  impro]);Lbilities  may  bo,  let  us  set  them  aside  aiul  look  only 
to  tlic  impossibilities. 

Now,  among  the  latter  kind  of  difliculties,  there  is  one  about 
which,  in  so  far  as  we  are  aware,  not  inucli  has  been  said  hith- 
erto, although  it  enters,  we  apprehend,  into  the  very  essence  of 
the  subject. 

The  mass,  you  say,  is  the  renewal  of  Jesus  Christ's  sacrifice  ; 
it  has  all  the  meaning  and  all  the  value  of  that  sacrifice.  Yon 
do  not,  however,  go  so  far  as  to  say  that  it  includes  also,  for  the 
Saviour,  the  renewal  of  the  sutferings  on  Calvary  ;  to  you  it 
would  seem  absurd  and  impious  to  condemn  to  tortures  renewed 
indefinitely  Him  who  spoke  of  his  death  as  his  return  to  a  state 
of  endless  peace  and  endless  happiness. 

"Well,  then,  this  restriction,  which  you  cannot  but  admit, 
makes  a  huge  breach  at  once  in  the  system  which  you  hope  by 
it  to  render  less  shocking.  In  the  Scriptures,  in  the  Fathers,  in 
all  Christian  authors  everywhere,  the  Saviour's  sufTerings  arc 
represented  to  us  as  one  of  the  essential  elements  of  his  sacrifice. 
The  Church  has  at  all  times  condemned  as  a  heresy  the  opinion 
that,  owing  to  his  Divine  nature  preventing  it,  He  did  not  suficr 
on  the  cross  ;  it  was  seen  that  any  such  idea  would  shake  the 
whole  theory  of  man's  redemption  from  its  foundation.  The 
Roman  Catechism,  though  it  habitually  overstrains  everything, 
not  excepting  the  truth  itself,  goes  so  far  as  to  say  that  "  the 
particular  complexion  of  Jesus  Christ's  body,  as  formed  by  the 
Holy  Ghost,  and  consequently  more  perfect  and  more  delicate 
than  are  other  men's  bodies,  rendered  him  more  sensible  to  all 
the.se  torments  ?"  The  Catechism  knows  nothing  of  this,  and 
had  much  better  have  said  nothing  about  it ;  but,  in  fine,  nothing 
could  better  prove  the  importance  attached  to  Christ's  sufferings, 
viewed  in  relation  to  the  object  which  He  proposed  to  himself  in 
suff^ering. 

Assuming  this,  in  what  sense  then  is  the  mass  the  reproduction 
of  the  sacrifice  accomplished  on  Calvary  ?  Between  a  sacrifice 
in  which  the  victim  does  not  sulier  at  all,  and  a  sacrifice  the 
value  of  which  arose  more  or  less  from  the  victim's  sufierings, 
can"  there  be  any  parity  ?  Parity  in  point  of  results — all  well ; 
God,  in  his  mercy,  is  certainly  free  to  make  the  one  as  efficacious 
as  the  other.  But  from  the  moment  that  Christ,  on  the  altar, 
is  no  longer  a  sulFerer,  He  is  no  longer,  viewed  as  a  victim,  the 
same  that  he  was  on  the  cross.  There  is  wanting,  then,  in  the 
mass,  one  of  the  fundamental  parts  of  the  sacrifice  w'hich  it  is 
held  to  reproduce.  Henceforth,  as  respects  that  i)art  at  least,  it 
is  only  its  image,  not  its  reproduction. 

We   have   already  made  an  analogous  observation.      In  the 


3o4  HISTORY    OF   THE    COUNCIL    OF   TRENT.  Book  IV. 

supper — "  this  is  my  body  tuliich  is  broken  for  you,"  said  Christ. 
Ill  the  mass  it  is  entire  under  every  fraction  of  the  wafer.  "  A 
dispute  about  words,"  shall  we  be  told  ?  A  dispute  about  words, 
if  you  Avill ;  but  are  we  not  engaged  in  a  question  about  words  ? 
The  debate,  in  the  end,  runs  altogether  on  the  word  is.  Take 
away  that  word,  and  what  becomes  of  transubstantiation  ?  Who, 
looking  at  the  whole  of  the  rest  of  the  New  Testament,  would 
ever  have  thought  of  seeking  to  establish  it,  and  would  ever  have 
had  the  idea  of  it  ?  Thus  we  have  here  another  point  in  which 
the  mass  is  not  the  supper.  In  the  one  the  body  is  broken,  in 
the  other  we  are  taught  that  it  is  not  broken. 

Do  we  find  identity  at  least  in  the  rest  ?  Even  should  we 
consent  to  forj?et  all  that  we  have  said  agrainst  transubstantia- 
tion,  w^e  cannot  avoid  reading,  in  the  institution  itself  of  the  sup- 
per, "Do  this  in  remembrance  of  me" — an  expression  singu- 
larly inappropriate  if  it  was  not  a  memorial  that  was  meant, 
and  which  the  Apostles  have  nowhere  commented  upon,  in  so 
far  as  we  are  aware,  in  such  a  manner  as  to  shew  that  they  un- 
derstood it  otherwise.  We  would  further  call  to  mind,  that  ac- 
cording to  St.  Paul,  "  we  are  sanctified  by  the  oflering  of  the 
body  of  Jesus  Christ  once  for  all."^  Who  can  figure  to  himself  a 
doctor  in  the  Church  believing  in  the  mass,  in  the  renewal  of" 
Jesus  Christ's  sacrifice,  and  saying,  without  explanation,  without 
restriction,  without  adding  a  single  word  to  prevent  the  error  which 
he  risks  teaching,  that  the  oblation  was  offered  once.  And  Avhere 
do  we  find  this  assertion  ?  Why,  at  the  close  of  a  piece  in  which 
sacrifices  are  expressly  treated  of,  Avherc  the  Old  Testament  dis- 
pensation, with  its  daily  sacrifices,  is  confronted  with  the  New. 
"  The  old  law  having  a  shadow  of  good  things  to  come,  can 
never,  with  those  sacrifices  which  they  offered  year  by  year  con- 
tinually, make  the  comers  thereunto  perfect ;  for  then  they 
would  not  have  ceased  to  be  offered.  But  Christ,  when  he 
Cometh  into  the  world,  saith.  Sacrifice  and  oflbring  thou  wouldst 
not,  but  a  body  hast  thou  prepared  me."  And,  in  fine,  by  way 
of  conclusion,  ''  We  are  sanctified  through  the  offering  of  the 
body  of  Jesus  Christ  once  for  all  ?"  Thus  the  antithesis  is  as 
clear  and  as  formal  as  jDossible.  There  we  see  sacrifices  offered 
year  by  year,  daily,  because  they  could  not  render  those  who 
offered  them  perfect,  and  thus  it  was  what  had  constantly  to  be 
recommenced  ;  here,  one  only  sacrifice,  because  one  that  is  suffi- 
cient to  sanctify  for  ever  those  who  shall  accept  its  efficacy. 
Marie  what  the  Apostle  further  says,  "  And  every  priest  standetli 
daily  ministering,  and  offering  oftentimes  the  same  sacrifices, 
which  can  never  take  away  sins,  but  this  man,  after  he  had 

'  Hel).  x.  10. 


CUAJ'.  V.  1502.     CAN    THE    MASS    UE    I'OLND    IN    THE    bllJLE  ?  335 

oficred  one  sacrifice  for  sins,  for  ever  sat  down  on  the  riglit  hand 
of  God."  And  at  anotlier  place, ^  "  Nor  yet  that  he  should  oiler 
himself  often." 

This  last  expression — Avho  could  imagine  it  ? — although  the 
meaning  be  so  clearly  determined  by  so  many  analogous  pas- 
sages, some  liave  been  bold  enough  to  enlist  in  support  of  the 
mass.  It  has  been  said  that,  in  point  of  fact,  Jesus  Christ  does 
not  hwiself  often  make  an  oilering  of  himsell",  but  that  these 
words  assume  that  he  has  given  to  others  the  right  and  the  duty 
of  oilering  him. 

\Ye  are  truly  weary  of  recurring  so  often  lo  the  same  argu- 
mentation ;  but  how  is  it  possible  not  to  feel  constrained  to  say 
liere,  with  greater  urgency  than  ever,  to  the  ignorant,  lo  the 
learned,  lo  gi-eat  and  small,  to  every  one  that  is  or  fancies  him- 
self lo  be  a  Roman  Catholic  : 

Let  us  see.  With  your  hand  iipon  your  conscience,  answer. 
►*!upposing  you  were  alone  in  the  world,  and  were  to  find  a  Bible, 
were  you  lo  read  it  over  a  hiuidred  times,  nay,  a  thousand  times, 
were  you  lo  live  a  hundred  years,  and  that  those  hundred  years 
were  all  consecrated  to  the  study  of  that  Bible — would  you  ever 
come  lo  the  mass  ?  And  granting  even,  by  some  impossibility, 
that  taking  the  words  this  is  my  body  in  their  literal  meaning, 
you  were  to  arrive  at  the  idea  of  transubstantiation,  would  you 
ever  advance  to  that  of  a  daily  renew^al  of  the  sacrifice  ? 

Nor  let  it  be  said  that  in  proposing  this  test  we  transfer  the 
question  to  our  own  domain,  that  of  individual  and  free  inquiry. 
AA'c  might  reply  to  this  objection  at  once,  by  saying  Ihat  the 
Council  of  Trent,  on  this  point,  made  an  appeal  lo  inquiry,  since, 
as  w'e  shall  see  ere  long,  it  devoted  a  long  chapter  lo  an  exposi- 
tion of  the  Scriptural  proofs  of  the  mass.  But  what  wc  ask  for 
at  present,  is  neither  that  the  Roman  Catholic  shall  set  himself 
to  interpret,  according  to  his  own  judgment,  such  or  such  a 
passage,  nor,  still  less,  that  he  should  construct  a  system  for  the 
purpose  of  putting  it  in  the  place  of  that  of  his  Church  ;  it  is 
simply  that  he  shall  ask  himself  whether  he,  the  man  himself, 
would  have  found  in  the  Bible  Avhat  his  Church  teaches  him  on 
the  subject  of  the  mass,  if  he  believes  that  others  could  any  more 
than  himself  have  found  it  there,  and  this  being  first  answered, 
whether  he  can  seriously  accord  to  his  Church  the  right  to  lay 
down  as  the  basis  of  doctrine,  and  as  the  centre  of  worship,  what 
he  could  not  have  had  even  a  glimpse  of  in  the  very  book  which 
all  Christians  own  lo  be  the  first  and  the  purest  of  the  sources 
of  truth.  Ah,  ye  priests  of  Rome,  it  is  hard,  indeed,  lo  believe 
that  ye  never  put  such  questions  as  these  lo  yourselves  I  and  still 

'  Heb.  ix.  25. 


336  HISTORY    OF  THE    COUiNClL   OF  TRENT.  Book  IV. 

harder  is  it  for  us  to  comprehend  that  they  do  not  wring  from 
you  some  confessions  I  "  What  I  this  right,  so  dreadful,  so  ter- 
rible, to  ofler  daily  on  the  altar  no  less  a  victim  than  this,  this 
privilege,  which  if  I  hold  it  not  really  from  God,  can  be  no  bet- 
ter than  a  sacrilegious  usurpation,  an  abominable  lie — see,  the 
Scriptures  do  not  mention  it  expressly  once  ;  see,  the  Council  of 
Trent,  my  supreme  teacher  and  master,  reduced  to  the  necessity 
of  founding  it  on  the  figures  of  the  Old  Testament,  on  a  few 
words  in  the  New,  on  imperceptible  details  lost  in  the  midst  of 
those  large  inspired  pages,  where  there  would  have  been  such 
ample  room  for  speaking  of  it.  In  the  case  of  a  purely  human 
right,  that  of  succession  to  a  property,  for  example,  should  I  be 
quite  at  my  ease  were  I  to  possess  it  in  virtue  of  title  and  argu- 
ments of  any  such  kind  ?  It  were  idle  to  tell  me  that  the  testa- 
tor had  appointed  persons  to  interpret  his  washes,  and  that  these 
adjudge  the  inheritance  to  me.  If  I  found  no  positive  mention 
of  my  right  in  his  testament ;  if  that  deed,  still  more,  were  a 
writing  of  some  hundred  pages,  full  of  details  on  a  multiplicity 
of  things  of  far  less  importance — no  I  I  could  not  but  have  scru- 
j)le3,  and  could  not  but  question,  although  to  my  own  disadvan- 
tage, either  the  intelligence  or  the  impartiality  of  the  tribunal." 
Simple  as  this  reasoning  is,  how  does  it  happen  that  so  few 
priests  make  it,  so  few  at  least  that  are  courageous  enough  and 
candid  enough  to  deduce  some  consequences  ?  Possibly  the  very 
exorbitance  of  the  privilege  in  question  helps  to  shelter  it  from 
the  attacks  of  conscience  and  of  reason.  The  deeper  the  abyss, 
the  less  difficult  it  is  to  shut  their  eves  and  to  interdict  them- 
selves  from  sounding  its  depths.  Then,  this  Saviour  descending 
from  heaven  at  the  voice  of  a  man,  this  God  who  immolates 
himself  in  a  sinner's  hands  for  sinners — there  is  something  too 
great,  too  extraordinary  in  it,  for  the  imagination  to  yield  itself 
to  it  by  halves.  Either  it  is  not  believed  at  all,  or  it  is  believed 
with  the  whole  soul.  "At  Rome,"  says  Luther,^  "  I  ran  like  a 
fool  through  all  the  churches.  I  almost  regretted  that  my  father 
and  mother  were  still  in  life,  so  much  should  I  have  loved  to 
draw  their  souls  out  of  purgatory  by  means  of  the  masses  which 
I  said  every  day  I"  The  immolation  of  the  Saviour  in  the  mass 
has  been  sung  by  many  a  poet  who  did  not  believe  in  it  any 
more  than  wc ;  it  has  supplied  the  theme  of  many  a  burst  of 
eloquence  to  many  an  orator  and  many  an  author,  who  made  no 
pretence  in  other  respects  to  being  a  Roman  Catholic  or  even  a 
Christian,  and  who  Avould  have  blushed  at  being  thought  to  be- 
lieve such  or  such  another  dogma  a  hundred  times  more  satis- 
factorily proved  to  reason,  but  less  confounding.     How  then  won- 

'  Letter  to  John  von  Sternberg. 


Chap.  V.  1502.      THE  MASS  A  SACRIFICE— FOUR  PROOFS.  337 

der  that  the  priest,  a  man  fashioned  to  believe,  and  interested  in 
behevinir,  should  play  the  fool  in  regard  to  a  dogma  by  which  even 
infidels  have  sometimes  allov^-ed  themselves  to  be  carried  away. 

If  any  such  poetical  dream  had  been  hitherto  indulged  by  the 
members  of  the  council,  they  must  have  been  most  unpleasantly 
aroused  from  it  by  listening  to  the  doctors  w^ho  had  been  appointed 
1o  elaborate  the  question.  However  convinced  these  prelates 
may  have  been  that  tradition  supplied  a  sufficient  foundation  for 
a  dogma,  more  than  one  of  them,  assuredly,  had  never  expected 
to  find  the  Church  so  rebellious  and  the  doctors  so  nonplussed. 
Not  one  of  their  scriptural  arguments  did  not  end  at  last  in  the 
admission  that  the  mass  is  nowhere  in  the  Bible.  In  all  grave 
and  momentous  questions,  the  more  a  man  has  recourse  to  small 
indirect  proofs,  the  more  arc  his  opponents  entitled  to  say  that 
the  great,  the  direct,  the  veritable,  are  wanting. 

Now,  the  decree  on  the  mass  adduces  only  four  proofs.  Are 
these  small  or  great — direct  or  indirect  ?  We  leave  the  reader 
to  judge. 

I.  Jesus  Christ,  says  St.  Paul,  is  a  priest  after  the  order  of 
Melchizedek.  Melchizedek  (Gen.  xiv.)  offered  bread  and  wine. 
Therefore  the  priesthood  of  Jesus  Christ,  and,  as  a  consequence, 
the  Christian  priesthood  in  general,  is  exercised  by  means  of  a 
sacrifice  offered  under  the  elements  of  bread  and  wine. 

II.  The  paschal  lamb  was  a  sacrifice.  Seeing  that  it  pre- 
figured the  eucharist,  the  eucharist  is  a  sacrifice  also. 

III.  God,  by  the  mouth  of  Malachi,  saith,  that  one  day,  in  every 
place,  a  pure  offering  would  be  offered.  The  supper,  therefore, 
which,  in  point  of  fact,  is  celebrated  everywhere,  is  an  oblation. 

IV.  St.  Paul  says  (1  Cor.  x.)  that  those  who  have  partaken 
of  the  table  of  devils,  cannot  partake  of  the  Lord's  table.  Now, 
the  table  of  devils  means,  in  this  passage,  the  altars  of  false  gods. 
The  Lord's  table,  therefore,  is  also  an  altar,  and  every  altar  sup- 
poses a  sacrifice.     The  eucharist,  therefore,  is  one. 

See  now,  Roman  Catholics,  see  what  your  Church,  see  Avhat 
three  hundred  bishops  or  doctors,  what  the  council  of  Trent,  in 
fact,  has  contrived  to  find  in  the  Bible  in  support  of  the  mass ; 
see  the  sole  foundation-stones  it  succeeded  in  laying,  after  the  ef- 
forts of  a  month,  beneath  the  splendid  altars,  where,  according  to 
that  council,  the  Christ  is  immolated  I  Three  Old  Testament 
figures  and  a  word — one  can  hardly  call  it  a  passage — a  word 
from  the  New.  These  meagre  details,  which,  supposing  that  the 
mass  was  formally  taught  elsewhere,  could  at  most  have  been 
given  as  references  to  it — see  the  council  adducing  them  as  suf- 
ficing for  its  establishment,  and  by  atUlucing  no  others,  admitting 
that  ihey  are  the  best  it  could  find.      To  lean  on  such  passages, 

P 


3SS  HISTORY   OF   THE    COUNCIL  OF   TRENT.  Book  IV. 

Gays  Bu  Moulin,  is  like  wanning  one's  self  at  the  moon.  Fur- 
ther, it  was  found  necessar}%  in  order  to  make  the  case  of  Mel- 
chizedek  have  the  appearance  of  meaning  something,  to  alter 
the  narrative  as  it  stands  in  Genesis,  "  He  brought  forth  bread 
and  wine,"  say  the  Hebrew  text  and  the  version  of  the  Seventy, 
"now"  or  "  and  he  was  the  priest  of  the  Most  High."  Thus 
the  text  does  not  say  that  it  was  as  a  sacrificer,  or  in  view  of  a 
sacrifice,  that  he  had  that  bread  and  wine  brought  forth.  In  the 
place  of  the  noiv  or  and,  the  Vulgate  has  put /br  ;  a  manifest  falsi- 
fication, admitted  to  be  so  by  Cajetan.  "  What  has  been  put  in 
the  Yulgate,  '  says  he,  "  as  the  motive  of  the  ofiering, /or  he  was, 
is  not  in  the  Hebrew  as  the  motive,  but  as  a  separate  incident."' 

Did  they  not  carrj-  their  own  refutation  along  with  them,  we 
should  only,  to  refute  tl^em,  have  to  transcribe  the  objections 
brought  against  them  in  the  council  itself.  Not  one  of  these  cita- 
tions, in  fact,  was  allowed  to  pass  unchallenged  ;  not  one,  which 
is  still  more  to  the  purpose,  without  the  admission  that  it  did  not 
suffice  for  the  establishment  of  the  mass,  and  that  without  tra- 
dition, it  could  not  be  affirmed  to  have  established  it ;  not  one,  in 
a  word,  which  might  not  have  been  followed  with  the  restate- 
ment of  our  fundamental  objection,  and  the  confession  that  for  a 
thing  of  such  consequence  not  to  be  clearly  and  formally  in  the 
Bible,  is  tantamount  to  its  not  being  there  at  all. 

There  was  a  point,  moreover,  which  went  to  the  very  raot  of 
the  doctrine,  and  on  which  there  was  no  less  disagreement  than 
on  the  choice  of  passages  to  be  adduced  for  establishing  the  mas.«< 
in  general. 

When  Jesus  Christ  instituted  the  supper,  did  he  ofier  himself 
as  a  sacrifice,  or  did  he  only  announce  the  sacrifice  he  was  about 
to  ofier  on  the  cross  ? 

This  last  alternative,  the  only  admissible  one  in  our  opinion, 
suggests,  when  contemplated  from  the  Roman  Catholic  point  of 
view,  an  insurmountable  difficulty.  It  is  the  only  admissible 
one,  we  say.  Suppose,  in  fact,  that  after  having  instituted  the 
supper,  Jesus  Christ  had  taken  up  a  new  idea,  had  refused  to 
sufier  and  to  die,  what  value  Avould  there,  then,  have  attached  to 
the  supper  ?  Why,  none.  It  had  no  value,  therefore,  beyond 
what  it  behoved  to  receive  I'rom  the  great  act  that  was  soon  to 
follow. 

This  being  the  case,  the  difficulty  is  obvious  and  glaring.  If 
the  Saviour,  in  the  supper,  only  announced  his  sacrifice,  then  the 
supper  was  not  a  sacrifice,  and  the  mass,  the  reproduction  of  the 
supper,  is  no  more  a  sacrifice  either. 

'  "  Quod  in  Yuigata  editione  siibditur  ut  causa  oblationis,  erri-  ouim  : 
:u  HeDi'seo  uon  habetur,  ut  causa,  sed  ut  separata  clausula." 


Chap.  v.  ijOi!.        OBVIOUS   AND    GLAIUNG   DIFFICULTY.  389 

There  was  nothing:  for  it  then,  it  appears,  but  to  adopt  the 
former  alternative;  and  yet,  there  also,  there  was  an  insurmount- 
able embarrassment.  If  the  Saviour  oilered  himself  in  the  supper 
itself,  if  there  were  on  the  Thursday  a  real  and  tme  sacrifice,  the 
redemption,  then,  was  accomplished  before  the  sacrifice  of"  the 
cross,  which  is  contrary  to  all  that  is  taught  by  Scripture  and 
by  the  Church.  The  council  would  have  shuddered  at  the  mere 
enunciation  of  this  idea,  and  yet  it  approached  it  very  nearly  in 
decreeing  transubstantiation. 

The  only  method  of  escaping  from  the  annoyance  of  a  dis- 
puted voting,  as  well  as  from  the  inconvenience  of  exhibiting  as 
proofs  what  were  felt  to  be  no  better,  at  best,  than  weak  pre- 
sumptions— was  to  abandon  altogether  the  drawing  up  of  the 
chapters  on  doctrine,  and  notwithstanding  all  that  had  previously 
been  said  about  this  strange  way  of  getting  rid  of  an  embarrass- 
ment, more  than  one  prelate  inclined  to  this  course.  An  error 
had  been  committed,  they  said,  in  habituating  heretics  to  ask 
reasons  instead  of  simply  receiving  decrees.  What  had  been 
gained,  in  the  old  council,  by  drawing  up,  before  passing  to  the 
canons,  chapters  so  carefully,  so  minutely  worded  ?  Facilities 
had  been  given  for  attacks,  and  the  points  to  be  defended  had 
been  multiplied.  In  the  case  in  hand,  it  might  happen  that 
whether  from  want  of  time,  or  from  their  being  unable  to  find 
in  the  Scriptures  texts  clear  enough  and  precise  enough,  the  ob- 
jections of  the  innovators  might  remain  unanswered.^  Are  we, 
it  was  said,  in  fine,  advocates  or  judges?  Judges,  assuredly ;  but 
it  would  have  been  wiser  surely  not  to  have  delayed  making  this 
appeal  so  openly  till  the  very  day  when  the  council  felt  most 
embarrassed  about  the  judgment  it  was  to  pronounce. 

These  same  prelates  gave  it  to  be  understood  that  it  was  of 
consequence  to  bring,  not  the  labours  of  that  session  only,  but 
the  council  itself  to  as  early  a  close  as  possible.  Others  replied, 
that  the  grand  aflair  was  not  so  much  to  come  to  a  prompt,  as  to 
come  to  a  good  termination ;  that,  as  for  omitting  the  chapters 
on  doctrine,  after  spending  a  month  in  deliberations  with  the 
avowed  intention  of  having  such  chapters,  this  Avould  be  to  cover 
themselves  with  ridicule  and  disiirace.  Some  of  the  most  out- 
spoken  went  so  far  as  to  say  that,  apparently,  nothing  better  was 
wanted  than  to  deprive  the  council  of  all  consideration,  as  a  pre- 
text for  eluding  the  observance  of  the  disciplinary  decrees  which 
had  been  voted  Avith  secret  reluctance.  Nor  was  it  for  the  first 
time  that  this  reproach  was  addressed  to  the  papal  party.  Not 
surely  that  the  Itahan  bishops  had  said,  "  Let  us  cry  down  the 
council."  They  held  as  much  as  others,  and  more  than  others, 
*  The  Bisliop  of  Chiozza. — Pallavicini,  1.  xviii.  ch.  i. 


340  HISTORY   OF   THE    COUNCIL    OF   TRENT.  Book  IV. 

to  the  maintenance  of  its  moral  authority,  as  long  as  it  should 
be  absolutely  submissive  to  the  pope ;  but  it  was  plainly  enough 
seen,  that  from  the  moment  they  had  to  choose  betw^een  the  two 
powers,  their  choice  would  not  be  doubtful,  and  there  was  no 
calumny  in  the  thought  that  they  would  in  that  case  be  little 
scrupulous  as  to  the  means  of  humbling  the  assembly.  As  for 
us,  we  are  of  opinion  that  all  parties  might  take  this  reproach 
to  themselves.  None  admitted  the  authority  and  infallibility  of 
the  council,  except  upon  the  condition  of  its  not  running  counter 
to  certain  ideas ;  none  was  prepared  beforehand  to  submit  to  it, 
whatever  it  might  decide,  and  whatever  it  miight  do ;  and  we 
have  seen  how  small  a  matter  at  times  was  required  in  order  to 
call  out  protests,  and  threats  of  separation,  and  of  war. 

It  was  evidently  in  this  spirit  that  the  Spanish  bishops,  not- 
withstanding the  letter  from  their  king,  and  just  as  these  theo- 
logical embarrassments  were  at  their  worst,  again  took  up  the 
question  of  residence  and  the  divine  right.  First  they  wrote  a 
letter  to  Philip  II.,  begging  to  be  excused  for  no  longer  obeying 
him  on  this  point.  Besides,  they  would  say,  it  was  not  an  order 
that  the  king  had  sent  them.  His  majesty  had  called  on  them 
to  follow  it  only  with  submission  to  their  own  consciences.  The 
moment  seemed  to  them  to  have  arrived,  they  added,  for  finally 
determining  a  question  which,  according  to  them,  could  not  re- 
main undetermined,  without  rendering  all  the  efibrts  that  had 
been  put  forth  for  the  regeneration  of  the  Church,  utterly  use- 
less. 

Judging,  accordingly,  that,  for  the  moment,  any  attempt  to 
bring  them  back  must  be  hopeless,  the  legates  directed  their 
views  to  the  side  of  France,  and  the  cardinal  of  Ferrara,  nuncio 
at  the  court  of  Charles  IX.,  had  orders  to  obtain  from  him  a  letter 
of  a  like  description  with  that  of  Philip  II.  It  was  to  be  ad- 
dressed in  the  first  instance  to  the  French  ambassadors,  yet  was 
to  be  so  framed,  as  that  it  might  be  shewn  to  the  bishops  of  their 
nation  as  they  successively  arrived  at  Trent.  In  this  manner, 
unless  they  also  took  it  on  themselves  to  act  against  the  orders 
of  their  prince,  they  would  remain  separated  from  the  Spaniards ; 
and  if  the  two  nations  did  not  unite  on  that  point,  there  would 
be  less  risk  of  their  doing  so  on  others. 

Notwithstanding  these  precautions,  the  pope  had  continued  to 
avail  himself  of  other  means  of  providing  for  emergencies.  He 
had  been  for  some  months  insensibly  augmenting  his  troops ;  the 
pacific  insurrection  of  the  Spanish  bishops  gave  more  activity  to 
the  exertions  made  at  Rome  for  levying  men  and  horses.  Pius 
IV.  had  replied  to  the  French  ambassador's  representations,  that 
England  and  the  Protestants  of  Germany  talked  of  coming  to 


Chap.  V.  i:.G'2.     IMIIIJP   OFFERS    TO    DEFEND    THE    COUNCIL.  841 

the  assistance  ot'tliose  of  Fraucc ;  ami  tliat  it  fell  to  iiini,  in  that 
case,  to  provide  for  the  saiety  of  the  council.  It  was  further  per- 
ceived that  he  was  making  secret  endeavours,  like  Clement  VII. 
before  him,  to  form  a  league  among  the  Italian  princes,  a  scheme 
which  the  king  of  Spain,  always  trembling  lor  the  security  of  his 
kingdom  of  Naples,  could  not  contemplate  without  great  unea- 
siness. Pliilip,  accordingly,  hastened  to  send  him  word  that  he 
would  charge  himself  w^ith  the  defence  of  the  council,  and  that 
England  or  Germany  would  find  that  were  they  to  attempt  an 
invasion  of  France,  they  would  have  him  on  the  field  to  oppose 
them.  In  fine,  as  a  first  pledge  of  his  determination  to  iulfii  his 
promises,  he  sent  a  new  order  to  his  prelates  to  allow  the  ques- 
tion that  so  terrified  the  court  of  Rome,  to  drop. 

The  pope  had  lost  no  time  in  profiting  by  a  respite  which 
could  not  last  beyond  a  few  days;  so  it  was  soon  seen,  at  Trent, 
that  the  legates  had  received  an  order  to  wind  up  matters  with 
the  utmost  speed,  and,  if  possible,  before  the  arrival  of  the  French. 
The  ambassadors  of  France  complained  of  this,  on  the  10th  of 
August,  in  a  memorial  addressed  to  the  legates,  to  which  the 
latter  replied,  that  the  council  had  now  been  open  for  seven 
months,  and  that  it  was  not  either  very  respectful  to  ask  that  it 
should  be  kept  waiting  long,  nor  very  candid  to  attack  its  au- 
thority in  case  of  its  not  waiting.  So  far  they  were  quite  right. 
The  French  prelates  were  evidently  trifling  with  the  council ; 
whether  their  presence  was  desired  or  not,  they  could  no  longer 
allege  that  anything  had  been  neglected  in  the  way  of  inviting 
their  attendance.  It  was  they,  therefore,  that  were  in  the  wrong ; 
but  of  this  the  Romish  party  were  incapable  of  taking  advantage, 
by  themselves  maintaining  a  frank  and  honest  position.  \'\hen 
the  ambassadors  asked  whether  their  bishops  were  to  be  waited 
for  or  not,  they  were  refeiTed  to  the  assembly,  and  then,  w^hen 
they  attempted  to  address  the  assembly,  the  legates  declared  that 
there  ought  to  be  no  oificial  connexion  between  the  ambassadors 
and  the  bishops,  and  that  communications  could  pass  only  through 
them,  the  legates.  Next,  being  asked  to  consult  the  assembly, 
they  consulted  only  the  pope,  and  the  pope,  already  consulted  by 
the  French  ambassador  at  Rome,  had  said  that  he  would  report 
the  matter  to  the  legates.  "  See  what  ought  never  to  be  for- 
gotten," wTote  Lansac,  "  the  pope  sends  back  the  matter  to  the 
legates,  the  legates  refer  it  to  the  synod  ;  the  synod  is  not  at  lib- 
erty to  listen  to  any  proposition,  and  tlius  it  is  that  the  king  and 
all  men  are  deceived."' 

Such,  then,  was  the  atmosphere  in  which  the  decrees  on  the 
mass  were  elaborated.  Notwithstanding  the  efibrts  of  many  of 
the  bishops  to  concentrate  the  discussion  on  the  clearest  points, 


342  HISTORY   OF   THE    COUNCIL    OF    TRENT.  Book  IV. 

or  such  as  were  reckoned  the  clearest,  there  was  not  a  sitting  in 
which  the  disputants  were  not  led  back  to  the  grand  dispute 
about  the  oblation  of  the  Saviour  in  the  supper.  Four  opinions 
were  formed.  Pallavicini  gives  with  great  care  and  exactness 
the  names  of  their  principal  champions,  the  difierent  shades  of 
doctrine  discernible  amongst  them,  the  fluctuations  of  the  major- 
ity, and  so  forth.  He  never  seems  to  imagine  that  it  should  be 
thought  strange  to  see  the  council  divided  into  fifteen  or  twenty 
groups  on  so  capital  a  question,  and  one  which,  as  we  have  shewn, 
could  neither  be  set  aside  nor  decided  without  great  peril  to  the 
entire  structure  of  the  mass.  The  Jesuit,  Salmeron,  a  partisan 
of  the  real  oblation,  set  so  many  springs  in  motion  in  order  to 
have  the  majority,  that  the  bishops  were  obliged  to  complain  of 
his  manoeuvres  in  full  assembly.  "  Let  people  intrigue,'"  said 
they,  "  in  disciplinary  questions  ;  it  is  annoying,  still  the.se  are 
but  human  questions.  In  questions  of  doctrine,  such  doings  are 
scandalous,  they  are  sacrilegious."  Was  it  for  the  first  time,  then, 
that  there  was  occasion  for  this  remark  ? 

"  It  was  ao^reed,"  savs  Pallavicini,  ''  that  nothing  should  be 
put  into  the  decree  that  did  not  meet  with  the  assent  of  all ;  and 
that  whatever  might  displease  any,  should  be  taken  out  of  it. 
If  vou  would  have  individuals  conform  to  what  has  been  asfreed 
to  by  the  greater  number,  then  the  greater  number  must  conde- 
scend to  individuals,  by  yielding  somewhat  in  small  matters." 
Ever  the  same  tactics  repeated.  Where  the  Church  ventures 
to  pronounce  her  opinion,  there  the  smallest  matters  are  import- 
ant ;  the  salvation  of  mens  souls  is  involved  in  them.  V^ here 
she  is  forced  to  be  silent,  matters  of  the  greatest  moment  are 
''small  tilings''  The  seat  of  authority — a  small  thing.  The 
superiority  of  councils  to  the  pope — a  small  thing.  Was  the 
supper  a  true  sacrifice  ? — a  small  thing.  A  small  thing,  al- 
though in  the  dogmatic  theology  of  Rome,  it  is  the  foundation 
of  what  is  greatest.  The  grand  object,  accordingly,  was  to  say 
nothing  that  might  seem  to  decide  the  question,  and  no  one  can 
positively  say,  according  to  the  decree,  whether  the  oblation  of 
Jesus  Christ  by  himself  was  a  yrojDitiatory  oblation,  that  is  to 
say,  a  real  sacrifice,  or  a  simple  oblation,  a  sort  of  dedication  pre- 
luding to  the  sacrifice  of  the  cross.  An  attempt,  however,  was 
also  made,  by  means  of  circumlocutions  more  or  less  skilfully 
framed,  to  teach  a  little  more  than  the  simple  oblation  which 
would  have  ruined  the  real  presence  ;  but  the  word  propitia- 
tory, which  Salmeron  demanded,  and  which  alone  could  remove 
all  ambiguity,  was  carefully  left  out.  It  appears  only  in  the 
second  chapter,  where  the  institution  of  the  mass  is  no  more 
spoken  of,  but  the  mass  itself     AVe  should  have  felt  much  in- 


{•|i,vp.  V.  150'J.  QUESTION    OF    TJIE    Cl  I'    TAKEN    LP. 


:m:i 


clined  to  ask  ruitla'r  Avliat  would  have  occurred,  if  Boine  village 
priest,  entering'  the  liall  where  the  council  was  met  without  ]jre- 
vious  notice,  had  put  this  question — "  Fathers,  what  am  I  to 
teach  ? — was  the  oblation  of  the  supper  propitiatory  ;  yes,  or  no  ?" 

While  these  discussions  were  in  progress,  letters  were  received 
i'rom  the  emperor,  in  which  he  required  nothing  less  than  the 
dismissal  of  the  questions  relative  to  the  mass,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  that  of  the  cup,  of  which,  on  the  contrary,  he  called  for  a 
prompt  and  satislactory  solution.  Farther  delay,  after  so  many 
promises,  was  impossible.  The  reply,  accordingly,  was  that  the 
council  would  set  to  it  immediately,  but  with  tnis  not  unreason- 
able addition,  that  it  neither  could  nor  would  delay  the  pubhca- 
tion  of  any  of  the  decrees  that  should  be  ready. 

Meanwhile  the  French  ambassadors  were  for  ever  insisting 
that  the  session,  fixed  for  the  17th  of  September,  should  be  put 
off  for  a  month  at  least.  They  represented  that  various  second- 
ary questions,  which  must  sooner  or  later  come  before  them, 
might  be  studied  in  the  mean  time,  and  that  thus  the  close  of 
the"  council  would  not  be  really  delayed.  But  the  more  they 
urged,  the  less  wiUingness  was  there  to  yield  to  this  demand. 
It  became  a  subject  of  alarm  that  the  French  might  come  to 
think  themselves  authorized  to  believe  that  their  presence  was 
necessary  in  order  to  give  validity  to  the  decisions  ;  moreover, 
there  arose  a  report  that  when  hardly  arrived,  breaking  abruptly 
the  compromise  on  which  matters  had  hitherto  proceeded,  they 
were  to  moot  the  scorching  question  of  the  inferiority  of  the  pope. 
Although,  if  such  was  in  fact  their  intention,  there  were  no  vis- 
ible means  of  preventing  them  ;  there  was  a  desire  to  make  sure, 
by  the  public  promulgation,  of  all  that  had  been  decreed  Avithout 
them. 

The  council  had  in  the  last  session  reserved  to  itself  power  to 
advance,  should  it  judge  right,  the  day  of  meeting  for  that  which 
was  to  follow.  The  decrees  were  ready  about  the  end  of  August, 
fifteen  or  twenty  days  before  the  term  that  had  been  fixed.  The 
session  might  accordingly  have  been  held,  but  it  was  not  to  be 
dreamt  of  that  such  an  affront  should  be  oflered  to  those  who 
were  desirous,  on  the  contrary,  that  the  day  of  meeting  should  be 
put  off.  There  was  time  left  therefore  for  the  discussion  of  the 
affair  of  the  cup,  so  eagerly  called  lor  by  the  emperor,  and  as  the 
French  prelates  had  given  intimation  that  they  did  not  ask  to  be 
waited  for  with  respect  to  that  point,  there  was  no  longer  any 
kind  of  motive  or  pretext  left  for  not  taking  it  up. 

For  the  first  time,  then,  the  matter  was  directly  brought  for- 
ward. Three  opinions  arose,  or  rather  had  been  already  formed. 
One,  to  refuse  it  absolutely  ;   another,  to  grant  it,  but  under  cer- 


344  IIISTUIIV   OF   TIJE    COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  IV. 

tain  conditions  to  be  fixed  by  the  council ;  the  third,  to  refer  the 
matter  to  the  pope.  Among  the  partisans  of  this  last  opinion, 
some  wanted  a  pure  and  simple  reference ;  others,  a  reierence 
•with  reasons,  bearing  that  the  pope  might  make  the  concession 
asked  for.  The  Spaniards  Avere  always  for  an  absolute  refusal. 
Philip  II.  dreaded,  not  without  reason,  lest  the  concession  of  the 
cup  to  his  subjects  in  the  Netherlands,  should  give  his  other 
subjects,  if  not  in  Spain,  at  least  in  Franche-Comte  and  the 
Milanese,  a  hankering  lor  as  much  ;  he  couJd  perceive  that  that 
step  once  taken,  people  were  little  likely  not  to  attempt  farther 
advances. 

The  partisans  of  the  concession,  too,  strongly  insisted  on  the 
precautions  to  be  taken  to  prevent  its  giving  encouragement  to 
other  demands.  They  agreed,  in  general,  on  the  five  following 
conditions  indicated  by  the  legates  : 

I.  That  the  principle  be  voted,  but  the  application  left  to  the 
pope,  he  alone  being  in  a  position  to  judge  what  were  the  na- 
tions to  which  it  was  fit  that  the  benefit  should  be  granted. 

II.  That  the  pope,  in  order  to  his  being  properly  informed, 
should  send  legates  or  commissioners  beforehand,  to  all  quarters 
where  this  wish  had  been  expressed. 

HI.  That  the  consecrated  wine  should  never  leave  the 
churches,  not  even  to  be  taken  to  the  dying. 

IV.  That  those  to  whom  the  cup  shall  be  conceded,  should 
declare  that  they  do  not  regard  it  as  necessary  to  the  validity  of 
the  sacrament. 

V.  That  they  shall,  in  respect  of  all  other  matters,  return  fully 
and  sincerely  to  the  unity  of  the  Church. 

Conditions,  in  a  word,  which  it  Avas  indispensable  to  lay  down, 
but  the  two  last  of  which  made  the  concession  go  for  nothing. 
It  was  well  known  that  among  those  who  demanded  it,  there 
was  none  so  little  a  Protestant  as  to  declare  himself  a  Roman 
Catholic  from  the  moment  that  it  was  granted. 

For  several  days,  and  in  sittings  of  several  hours'  duration, 
each  speaker  in  support  of  one  opinion,  was  almost  invariably 
followed  by  one  who  supported  another.  In  the  end,  however, 
it  was  seen  that  a  majority  was  against  the  concession.  The 
emperor's  ambassadors,  who  had  hitherto  opposed  the  reference 
of  that  question  to  the  pope,  now  yielded  so  far  as  not  only  to 
consent  to  it  but  even  to  ask  it ;  defeated  in  the  council,  their 
object  was  to  have  a  door  at  least  left  open  for  them  at  Rome. 
Strensthened  by  their  concurrence,  the  legates  were  no  longer 
afraid  to  press  the  reference,  and  their  agents  set  themselves  to 
work  so  as  to  secure  a  majority  on  that  side. 

As  thev  thought  five  or  six  days  would  be  required  before 


Chap.  V.  15()2.     SOME   OF   THE    DISHOPS    REMONSTRATE.  345 

they  could  be  sure  of  sucli  a  state  of  the  vote,  they  proposed  the 
reo-ulating  of  a  score  of  articles,  some  on  a  certain  number  of 
abuses  relative  to  the  mass,  others  on  divers  points  of  discipline 
and  administration.  Although  these  last  were  favourable  in  gen- 
eral to  -episcopal  authority,  they  were  complained  of  by  many 
bishops.  These  asked  how  long  it  was  meant  that  the  great  re- 
forms were  to  be  put  ofl',  in  order  to  occupy  themselves  with  such 
only  as,  whenever  the  great  ones  were  accomplished,  would  come 
of  themselves.  One  of  them,  moreover,  observed  that  it  w-as  be- 
neath the  dignity  of  the  council  to  take  up  a  point  here  and  a 
point  there,  and  to  vote  on  a  thousand  things  without  being  able 
to  say  why  these  were  taken  up  rather  than  others.  "  Has  not 
the  order  of  business  been  all  regularly  laid  down  ?"  he  added. 
"Is  it  not  with  the  Head  and  his  court  that  reformation  should 
commence  ?  If  you  would  have  the  planets  regain  their  lustre, 
begin  by  telling  the  sun  to  regain  his."  And  the  bishop  of  Se- 
govia compared  the  council  to  a  physician  called  in  to  cure  an 
inveterate  disease,  and  who,  instead  of  having  recourse  to  real 
remedies,  should  employ  mere  slight  frictions  with  oil. 

Those  frictions,  so  slight  when  compared  with  the  evil  to  be 
cured,  were  not  even  directed  in  such  a  manner  as  to  leave  un- 
touched things  that  were  beyond  the  competence  of  the  council. 
Articles  viii.  and  ix.  empowered  the  bishops  to  interfere  with  a 
high  hand  in  the  management  of  hospitals,  colleges,  lay  com- 
munities, testaments,  &c.  ;  an  authority  which  they  did  actually 
enjoy  in  some  countries,  but  which  had  been  always  refused  to 
them  in  others,  and  notoriously  in  France.  The  superintendence 
of  hospital  property  by  the  bishops,  had  often  had  good  efiects  ; 
but  sometimes  also  it  had  resulted  only  in  gradually  transform- 
ing it  into  Church  property,  into  benefices,  and,  consequently,  in 
diverting  it  from  its  proper  destination.  Besides,  it  was  not  a 
question  of  convenience,  but  of  justice,  and  the  council  could  not 
pretend  to  regulate  alone  what  at  so  many  points  touched  upon 
civil  legislation  and  the  rights  of  sovereigns.  These  it  invaded 
also  by  granting  the  bishops  the  power  to  examme  notaries  and  to 
interdict  them,  in  some  cases,  from  the  exercise  of  their  functions. 
In  fine,  it  was  not  as  bishops,  but  as  delegates  of  the  pope,  that 
they  were  to  exercise  several  of  those  new  powers,  another  ex- 
orbitance which  further  contributed  to  provoke  the  resistance  of 
the  sovereign  princes.  It  seemed  that  the  assembly  were  not 
fully  aware  of  the  bearing  and  the  impropriety  of  those  articles, 
for  they  were  voted  hastily  and  almost  without  discussion.  They 
brought  occasion  for  repentance  in  their  train,  for  they  led  to  the 
decrees  of  the  council  being  refused  publication  in  France. 

Attached  to  these  there  were  various  rules  bearing  on  the 

p* 


S46  HISTORY   OF   THE   COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  IV. 

moral  and  intellectual  qualities  to  te  required  of  a  priest  in  order 
to  his  elevation  to  the  episcopacy,  the  conduct  to  be  folio vi^ed  by 
the  clergy  in  civil  life,  the  conditions  required  in  order  to  the  le- 
gitimate possession  of  a  benefice,  &c.  Looking  at  these  rules 
in  detail  we  should  hardly  have  aught  but  good  to  say  of  them  ; 
but  the  opposition  were  for  ever  asking  what  good  end  they  could 
serve,  what  sanctioned  them  ?  and  we  see,  in  fact,  that  the  ob- 
servance of  several  of  them  dated  no  farther  back  than  half  a  cen- 
tury, without  the  Church  being  able  even  to  take  to  herself  the 
glory  of  having  enforced  them.  ''Begin  then,"  the  bishop  of 
Orense  said,  "  with  a  decree  ordaining  that  these  laws  shall  be 
obligatory  for  the  pope,  and  then  only  shall  you  have  done  some- 
thing." 

Neither  were  there  laid  down  in  what  bore  on  abuses  relative 
to  the  mass,  any  regulations  but  what  were  very  good.  Priests 
were  enjoined  never  to  attend  but  with  due  respect,  and  in  a 
becoming  dress  ;  never  to  celebrate  it  hastily ;  to  remove  from  it 
everything  that  savoured  of  superstition,  for  example,  certain  cal- 
culations on  the  number  and  the  arrangement  of  the  wax  lights  ; 
finally,  and  in  the  most  formal  manner,  never  to  take  any  pay 
for  its  celebration.  "  Before  all,"  says  the  decree,  "  as  regards 
avarice,  let  the  bishops  absolutely  forbid  all  sorts  of  conditions 
and  stipulations  for  any  recompense  whatsoever,  and  all  that  is 
given  for  the  celebration  of  new  masses,  as  also  those  demands  for 
alms,  so  urgent  and  so  unseemly,  that  they  are  exactions  rather 
than  calls  for  charity,  and  all  other  things  of  that  sort  which 
are  not  much  removed  from  simony,  or,  at  least,  filthy  lucre.  "^ 
How,  after  this,  masses  should  still  be  paid  for,  is  what  we  shall 
not  venture  to  explain.  And  it  is  so  well  understood  in  fact  that 
there  is  no  disgrace  whatever  in  making  them  to  be  paid  for,  that 
the  pope  himself  when  he  says  mass  at  St.  Peter's  publicly  receives 
some  pieces  of  money  which  are  intended  to  represent  his  stipend. 

Some  words  now  on  the  canons  appended,  according  to  cus- 
tom, to  the  doctrinal  chapters. 

In  the  first  we  find  an  anathema  pronounced  on  whosoever 
shall  not  think  that  there  is  in  the  mass  a  sacrifice  properly  and 
truly  so  called.     We  need  not  recur  to  this  point. 

In  the  second,  anathema  to  whosoever  shall  not  believe  that  in 
saying  these  words  to  the  Apostles,  Do  this  m  re^nembraiice  of 
7)ie,  Jesus  Christ  instituted  them  priests,  alone  competent  to  say 

'  In  primis  quod  ad  avaritiam  pertinet,  ciijusvis  generis  raercfidum 
conditionis,  pacta,  et  quicquid  pro  missis  novis  celebrandis  datur,  necnon 
importunas  atque  illiberales  cleemosynanun  exactiones  potius  quam 
postulationes,  aliaque  ejusniodi  quffi  a  simoniaca  labe,  vel  certe  a  turpi 
qujestu  nou  loiige  absunt,  oninino  prohibeant. 


TiiAr.  V.  150'2.  INSTITUTION    OF    PIIIESTS.  347 

the  masp.  This  liiul,  down  to  thr.t  dale,  been  only  an  opinion, 
sufficiently  modern,  seeing  that  at  the  time  of  the  council  of 
Constance  it  \vas  hardly  beginning  to  make  head.  "  Take,  eat," 
said  Jesus  Christ,  "  this  is  my  body  which  is  broken  for  you. 
Do  this  in  remembrance  of  me."  Such,  in  their  whole  amount, 
are  the  Saviour's  words.  Do  this  cannot  be  separated  from 
what  goes  before  ;  from  vhat  is  indicated  as  to  he  done ;  and 
that  which  is  pointed  out  as  to  be  done  is  not  only  the  break- 
ing of  the  bread  it  is,  also,  and  above  all,  seeing  the  imperative 
is  used,  the  taking  of  it  and  the  eating  of  it.  If  Do  this  bo 
only  for  the  priests.  Take,  eat,  is  only  for  them  also ;  they  only 
then  have  a  right  to  communicate.  Do  we  at  least  find  these 
words  in  all  the  Evangelists  ?  No  ;  of  the  three  who  have 
given  a  narrative  of  the  supper,  two  omit  them.  How  can  it 
be  thought  that  they  would  have  omitted  them  had  they  seen 
in  them  a  matter  of  so  much  importance  as  the  institution  of  the 
priesthood  ]  To  these  Scriptural  ditHculties  there  is  conjoined 
another,  still  more  serious  for  the  Roman  Catholics.  The  priest 
is  not  only  the  minister  of  the  mass,  he  is  that  also  of  all  the 
other  sacraments,  in  particular  of  penance.  Can  it  be  said,  con- 
sequently, that  Jesus  Christ  made  priests  of  men  to  whom  for 
the  moment  he  gave  no  more  than  the  right  to  say  the  mass  ? 
"  They  might  then,"  says  Du  Moulin,  "  have  chanted  it  while 
Jesus  Christ  was  as  yet  upon  the  cross  or  in  the  sepulchre  ?"  No 
doubt  they  might  have  done  so.  had  they  believed  what  the  coun- 
cil teaches.  Only  it  would  have  been  somewhat  difficult,  on  that 
first  occasion,  to  believe  in  the  real  presence.  Can  you  figure  St. 
Peter  or  St.  John  under  the  persuasion  that  he  had  in  his  hand  or 
in  his  mouth  a  body  which  he  had  seen  taken  down  from  the 
cross,  and  which  he  knew  was  lying  in  a  tomb  ?  This  canon,  ac- 
cordingly, just  before  the  close  of  the  session,  gave  rise  to  a  vio- 
lent altercation.  The  Archbishop  of  Grenoble  combated  it  as 
contrary  to  the  opinion  of  St.  Denys,  of  St.  Maximus,  and  of  St. 
Chrysostom,  who  refer  the  collation  of  the  priesthood  to  those 
words  pronounced  by  Jesus  Christ  after  his  resurrection.  Receive 
ye  tlie  Holy  Ghost.  "  The  Fathers,"  says  Pallavicini,  "wearied 
with  so  many  speeches,  and  with  the  obstinacy  of  one  man,  who 
opposed  the  views  of  all  the  rest,  exclaimed  with  one  voice  that 
the  council  must  keep  to  what  had  been  decided.  '  One  viaii — 
All  the  rest.  The  historian  seems  then  to  affirm  that  the  Arch- 
bishop stood  alone,  and  yet,  after  having  relat'ed  the  discussion 
that  Ibllowed,  he  says.  "  The  party  that  supported  the  canon  be- 
came so  numerous  that  al  last  there  were  hardly  thirty  in  the  op- 
position." There  were  more  than  thirty  then  at  first ;  and  he 
might  have  added  that  those  thirty  were  among  the  members  who 


348  HISTORY   OF  THE    COUNCIL    OF    TRENT.  Book  IV. 

had  best  studied  the  subject,  the  most  habituated  to  sober  reflection, 
to  calmness  in  voting,  and  to  frankness  in  deahng  with  difficulties. 

In  the  third  canon,  anathema  to  whosoever  shall  maintain 
that  the  mass  is  no  more  than  a  sacrifice  of  praise  and  thanks- 
giving, benefits  none  but  the  person  who  communicates,  and 
ought  not  to  be  ofiered  for  sins,  penalties,  satisfactions,  and  other 
needs.  These  last  words  called  forth  various  remarks  on  the 
danger  of  authorizing  masses  said  on  all  occasions  and  for  all 
sorts  of  needs  ;  but  the  custom  had  become  so  universal  that  to 
condemn  it  would  have  been  to  condemn  the  Church,  and  more- 
over, would  have  damaged  one  of  the  chief  sources  of  its  influence 
and  of  its  revenues.  To  have  a  mass  said  for  the  cure  of  an 
invalid,  for  the  return  of  some  one  on  a  journey,  for  the  success 
of  an  honourable  or  hazardous  undertaking,  is  sometimes  very 
aflecting  as  a  manifestation  of  piety  ;  but  as  we  are  nowhere  told 
that  the  sacrifice  of  Jesus  Christ  had  for  its  object,  or  for  any 
one  of  its  objects,  the  obtaining  for  us  of  temporal  favours,  one 
does  not  see  how  the  mass,  if  it  be  its  exact  reproduction,  could 
have  any  object  other  than  that  of  the  sacrifice  itself,  that  is,  the 
pardon  of  sins  and  the  salvation  of  souls.  Twenty-five  prelates 
were  of  this  opinion. 

In  the  fourth  canon,  anathema  to  whosoever  shall  say  that  the 
sacrifice  of  the  mass  is  a  blasphemy  against  Jesus  Christ's  sacri- 
fice, or  that  it  derogates  from  it.  This  is  not  clear  ;  but  if  the 
meaning  be  that  the  immolation  on  the  altar  ought  not  to  dimin- 
ish  in  the  eyes  of  the  faithful,  the  importance  of  the  immolation 
on  Calvary,  what  is  required  is  an  impossibility.  The  ofiering 
has  been  made  o}ice,  says  St  Paul.  The  offering  is  made  daily, 
and  an  hundred  thousand  times  a  day,  says  the  Church.  How, 
then,  admit  that  the  greatness  of  the  act  cannot  be  impaired  by 
such  a  reproduction  of  it  ? 

In  the  fifth,  anathema  to  whosoever  shall  call  the  celebration 
of  masses  in  honour  of  the  saints  an  imposture.  Imposture  I  No  ; 
that  would  be  saying  too  little.  When  the  inhabitants  of  Lystra, 
supposing  Paul  to  be  Mercury  (Acts  xiv.),  would  have  offered 
sacrifice  to  him,  he  rent  his  garments,  he  turned  away  and  was 
liorrified.  "  Sirs,  why  do  ye  these  things  ?  We  also  are  men 
of  like  passions  with  you  I"  Suppose  him  come  back  to  this 
earth,  and  that  he  were  to  hear  men  speak  of  renewing  i7i  his 
honour — What  I  The  sacrifice  of  his  Master — that  immolation 
of  which  he  never  spoke  but  with  adoration  and  awe — and  say 
if  it  would  not  have  been  with  far  greater  horror  still  that  he 
would  have  exclaimed — "  Sirs,  why  do  ye  these  things?" 

In  the  three  following  canons,  anathema  to  whosoever  shall 
condemn  either  the  liturgy  of  the  mass  as  containing  errors,  or 


Chap.  V.  1562.      PRIVATE    CELEBRATION    OF   THE   MASS.  349 

the  ceremonies  of  the  mass  as  superstitious,  or  tlie  custom  ol' 
having  masses  in  w^hich  the  priest  alone  communicates.  As  for 
this  last  point,  if  the  mass  be  a  sacrifice,  there  is  nothing,  in 
fact,  to  prevent  one  man  alone  from  ofiering  it  for  others,  even 
though  absent ;  if  it  be  not,  no  man  could  entertain  the  idea  oi" 
celebrating  it  otherwise  than  in  a  congregation  of  the  faithful, 
assembled  for  the  purpose  of  communicating.  Accordingly,  it  is 
not  a  weak  aro^ument  ajrainst  the  mass  that  there  is  nowhere  in 
the  history  of  the  early  times  of  the  Church,  any  trace  whatever 
of  the  supper  being  celebrated  in  private  by  the  priest,  or  in 
public  without  those  present  participating.  When  Chateau- 
briand puts  into  the  mouth  of  one  of  his  personages  in  The  Mai'- 
tyrs,  that  he  is  going  to  celebrate  the  holy  sacrifice  for  Eucloxe, 
he  is  guilty  of  one  of  the  most  complete  anachronisms  that  occur 
in  that  book  in  Avhich  so  many  might  be  pointed  out. 

As  for  the  liturgy  in  which  it  is  forbidden,  by  authority  of  the 
council,  to  see  any  errors,  a  Roman  Catholic,  durst  he  venture, 
would  find  more  to  reprehend  than  we.  Made  up  of  ancient 
forms  of  prayer,  it  has  retained  some  curious  traces  of  those  times 
when  people  had  hardly  begun  to  enter  on  the  paths  which  were 
eventually  to  lead  to  the  mass.  Thus,  after  the  consecration, 
when  the  priest  presents  the  victim  to  God,  "  Deign,"  says  he  to 
God,  "  to  cast  on  these  things  a  propitious  and  serene  regard,  as 
thou  didst  deign  to  accept  the  ofiering  of  Abel."  Strange  Avords 
these  to  use  when  presenting  to  God  the  body  of  his  Son  I 

There  was  no  idea,  therefore,  of  this  when  that  invocation 
was  drawn  up.  When  the  supper  had  ceased  to  be  a  repast 
taken  in  common,  it  came  to  be  an  established  usage  to  carry  to 
the  church  and  to  place  upon  the  communion  table,  a  larger  or 
smaller  quantity  of  bread,  wine,  and  sometimes  even  of  fruit. 
Such  was  this  ofiering,  in  imitation  of  Abel's,  on  which  God's 
blessing  was  invoked  previous  to  part  of  it  being  set  aside  for 
distribution  at  the  supper ;  the  rest  went  to  the  poor.  Such  is 
the  explanation  of  what  is  added  in  the  liturg}' — "  We  suppli- 
cate thee,  0  God  I  to  command  that  these  tilings  may  be  borne, 
by  thy  holy  angel,  to  thy  heavenly  altar."  Such,  further,  is  the 
explanation  of  that  phrase — "  It  is  by  Christ,  0  God  I  that  thou 
dost  create,  sanctify,  vivify  and  bless  all  these  good  tJn??gs  ;"  for 
it  would  be  sufficiently  absurd  for  any  one  in  presenting  to  God, 
under  the  form  of  bread  and  wine,  the  body  and  the  blood  of  his 
Son,  to  set  himself  simply  to  bless  him  for  having  given  us  in 
nature,  bread  for  our  hunger  and  wine  for  our  thirst.  As  re- 
spects all  those  passages,  and  many  others,  it  is  only  in  conse- 
quence of  seeing  them  in  the  canon  of  the  mass  that  people 
have  come  to  lose  all  perception  of  their  unsnitablene??  there. 


350  HISTORV    OF   THE   COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  IV. 

and  how  far  they  are  from  expressing  what  people,  hehevmg  in 
the  real  presence,  could  not  have  failed  to  say  at  the  daily  re- 
newal of  the  sacrifice  of  Christ,  &c.  There  is  one,  however, 
which  would  have  been  quite  too  contrary  to  those  new  ideas, 
and  that  has  been  changed.  "  Cause  this  oblation  to  be  reckoned 
to  us,  that  it  be  reasonable,  acceptable,  because  it  is  the  figure 
of  the  Lord's  body  and  blood,  who,  on  the  night  of  his  passion, 
took  bread,"  &c.  Such  is  the  prayer  as  quoted  in  St.  Am- 
brose.^ In  the  canon  of  the  mass  let  the  reader  mark  the  change 
— "  Deign,  0  God,  to  cause  that  this  oblation  be  in  all  things 
blessed,  reckoned,  &c.,  in  order  that  it  inay  become  for  us  the 
body  and  the  blood  of  thy  dear  Son,  who,  on  the  night  of  his 
passion, "2  &c.  And  such  is  the  w^ay  in  which  people  set  them- 
selves to  write — the  mass  !  Notwithstanding  this,  put  that  lit- 
urgy into  the  hands  of  any  one  who  does  not  know  that  it  is 
the  mass,  and  he  wdll  hardly  see  it  there  any  more  than  in  the 
Gospel. 

Finally,  in  the  last  canon,  anathema  to  whosoever  shall  main- 
tain that  the  mass  ought  to  be  celebrated  in  the  Vulgar  tongue, 
or  who  shall  condemn  the  practice  of  putting  a  little  water  into 
the  wine  before  its  consecration.  What  foundation  is  there  for 
that  practice  ?  It  is  possible  that  the  wine  employed  by  Chi'ist 
was,  in  point  of  fact,  mingled  with  water ;  possibly,  too,  it  was 
not.  What  know  w^e  about  it  ?  What  can  we  know  about  it  ? 
"  St.  Cyprian  and  several  councils  teach  it,"  says  the  Eoman 
Catechism.  True,  but  what  knew  they  about  it  ?  And  if  Scrip- 
ture speaks  of  nothing  but  wine,  why  speak  of  anything  else  l^ 
Nevertheless,  according  to  that  same  catechism,  that  mixture  is 
so  important  that  its  omission  must  be  a  mortal  sin.  Only, 
"  Let  the  priests  be  careful  to  put  very  little  w^ater  into  the  wine, 
for,  according  to  the  divines,  that  water  must  change  itself  into 
wine,"  before  the  whole  is  changed  into  blood  I  Another  mir- 
acle !  But  the  E-omanist  doctors  seem  not  quite  to  trust  to  the 
former.  Put  very  little  water,  they  say.  But  why  ?  If  the 
transformation  really  takes  place — little  or  much,  what  does  it 

^  De  Saci-amentis,  iv.  5. — Quod  est  figura  corporis  et  sanguinis  Domini 
nostri. 

^  Ut  nobis  corpus  et  sanguis  fiat  dilectissimi  filii  tui  Domini  nobtri. 

^  There  seems  to  be  among  Roman  Catholic  divines  a  necessity  for 
outrunning  and  torturing  Scripture,  even  when  they  have  no  interest 
in  doing  so.  Know  you  why  the  supper  is  regarded  as  a  repast  of 
union  and  love?  Think  you  it  is  because  it  recalls  the  love  of  God  to 
men,  our  equality  before "^Him,  <tc.  ?  Kot  at  all.  According  to  the  Ro- 
man Catechism  it  is  because  the  bread  is  composed  of  many  grains  of 
wheat,  and  the  wine  of  many  single  grapes  mingled  and  confounded. 
Such  is  tlie  union:  such  is  the  Church. 


OiiAP.  V.  1562.  THE    MASS    TO    BE   SAID   IN   LATIN.  851 

matter?  Ah  I  it  is  because  too  iiiuch  wine  iiiiused  would  f^ieally 
risk  not  liaviug  quite  the  taste  of  pure  wine,  and  thus  the  faitli 
of  the  priest  would  be  exposed  to  too  rude  a  trial. 

As  lor  the  other  point,  that  of  the  mass  in  the  Vulgar  tongue, 
let  us  stop  for  a  moment  to  consider  it. 

Shall  we  begin  by  quoting  the  passage  in  which  St.  Paul 
seems  to  have  had  a  Ibresight  of  what  was  afterwards  to  be  done, 
so  emphatically  does  he  declare  and  repeat  that  lie  that  speaks 
in  the  church  ought  to  be  understood  by  all?  "  Except  ye  utter 
by  the  mouth  words  easy  to  be  understood,  how  shall  it  be  known 
what  is  spoken  ?  For  ye  shall  speak  into  the  air.  For  if  I  pray 
in  an  unknown  tongue,  my  spirit  prayeth,  but  my  understanding 
is  unfruitful."  1  And  this  idea  re-occurs  two  or  three  times  in 
the  same  chapter. 

Shall  it  be  said  that  the  Apostle,  in  this  part  of  his  writings, 
speaks  not  of  tongues  mevely  foreig)i,  but  of  unknown  tongues? 
The  reasons  he  adduces  are  too  general  to  have  their  cogency 
in  the  least  lessened  by  this  distinction.  He  desires,  such  is  the 
plain  fact,  that  he  that  speaks  shall  be  understood. 

St.  Paul  adds,  it  is  true,  that  he  that  has  spoken  in  an  un- 
known tongue  might  still  profit  others  by  interpreting  what  he 
has  said.  "  Now,"  it  will  be  said  in  reply,  "  the  Church  has 
never  refused  to  interpret  her  Latin  liturgies ;  it  is  easy  to  pro- 
cure translations  of  them."  Now-a-days  it  is  easy;  the  time 
was  when  it  was  very  difficult,  and  we  all  know,  besides,  how 
many  there  are  who  cannot  read.  Even  at  this  day  do  we  see 
many,  especially  in  countries  entirely  Roman  Catholic,  who  un- 
derstand or  care  about  understanding  the  Latin  offices  ?  Most 
frequently,  moreover,  nothing  is  heard.  The  use  of  a  language 
which  is  not  understood  has  led  to  the  habit  of  speaking  low, 
rapidly,  and  indistinctly;  it  is  only  by  following  in  a  book  the 
words  spoken  by  the  priest,  that  even  one  who  knows  Latin  can 
go  along  with  what  is  said. 

Although  all  men  should  be  able  to  read — and  Roman  Catholic 
countries  are  far  from  ranking  first  in  this  respect — although  all 
men  were  to  compel  themselves  to  have  the  book  constantly  in 
their  hand,  the  objection  would  remain  the  same.  Why  Latin 
rather  than  the  language  of  the  country?  Why  go  round  about 
when  there  is  nothing  to  prevent  your  going  straightforward  ? 
You  allow  the  French  to  follow  the  mass  with  a  French  trans- 
lation; if  they  avail  themselves  of  the  permission,  it  is  as  if  they 
heard  it  in  French.  Will  it  lose  its  virtue  ?  You  do  not  say 
that.  What  reason  have  you,  then,  for  not  granting  to  every- 
body, by  speaking  in  everybody's  language,  the  favour  you  grant 

'  1  Cov.  x-iv. 


352  HISTORY  OF   THE  COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  IV. 

to  "whosoever  can  use,  and  chooses  to  use,  a  translation  ?  Then, 
was  not  this  language,  which  is  at  this  day  a  strange  unknown 
tongue,  to  the  great  majority  of  the  faithful,  originally  the  Vulgar 
tongue  ?  Here,  therelbre,  is  a  point  on  which  you  cannot  call 
in  the  aid  of  tradition.  Do  we  lind  that  during  the  first  centu- 
ries of  the  Church,  there  Avas  ever  a  thought  of  imposing  Latin 
on  the  members  of  the  Eastern  Churches?  Had  the  Eastern 
Churches,  on  the  other  hand,  ever  a  thought  of  imposing  Greek 
on  anybody  ?  And  yet  they  had  by  much  the  stronger  reasons 
for  attempting  it.  The  Apostles  wrote  and  preached  in  Greek. 
In  Greek  the  history  and  the  sayings  of  Jesus  Christ  found  their 
way  into  the  west.  Were  Christianity  to  have  a  sacred  language, 
it  is  the  Greek ;  the  Hebrew,  if  you  will  have  it  so ;  but  the 
Latin  it  is  not. 

But  why  should  we  speak  of  a  sacred  language  ?  Is  not  the 
ver}'-  universality  of  Christianity,  which  is  regarded  by  every  one 
as  one  of  its  essential  and  distinctive  characters,  an  argument 
against  that  unity  of  language  wuth  which  Rome  would  endow 
it  ?  It  is  only  in  countries  where  the  institution  of  caste  prevails, 
among  the  ancient  Egyptians,  and  among  the  Hindoos,  that  we 
find  a  language  specially  employed  for  worship,  and  by  the  priests. 
When  a  religion  appears  with  the  announcement,  that  it  is  to 
belong  not  only  to  all  nations,  but,  further,  in  each  nation,  to  all 
the  individuals  that  compose  it,  when  it  comprises  nothing  which 
ought  not  to  be  revealed  to  all  men — it  is  contradictory  to  its 
very  essence,  to  make  it  ever  speak  to  men  in  a  language  that 
they  do  not  understand. 

As  for  the  rest,  it  is  not  by  chance  that  Rome  is  here  found 
associated  with  Egypt  and  India,  rather  than  with  the  altogether 
civil  organization  of  Roman  Paganism ;  no  more  was  it  by  chance, 
or  from  caprice,  that  the  Reformers  were  so  urgent  for  the  aban- 
donment of  the  Latin  tongue.  They  were  thoroughly  sensible 
that  it  would  not  depart  alone ;  and  Rome,  without  saying  so, 
had  the  same  conviction.  The  mass  in  French,  in  German,  in 
English,  is  no  longer  the  mass.  The  form  has  incorporated  itself 
with  the  substance,  and  cannot  undergo  a  change  without  seri- 
ously affecting  the  substance.  The  miracle  of  transubstantia- 
tion  is  wrought  by  these  words.  Hoc  est  corpus  meuin;  let  the 
priest  say.  This  is  my  body,  and  the  charm  is  half  destroyed, 
even  to  those  who  equally  understand  both.  We  have  seen 
Roman  Catholics,  in  reading  the  mass  for  the  first  time  in  their 
own  tongue,  experience  the  utmost  disappointment.  They  saw 
nothing  bad  or  false  in  it,  but  no  more  did  they  see  aught  that 
seemed  adequate  in  point  of  grandeur  to  the  mystery  that  had 
previously  fed  their  imagination.      And  it  is  not  only  with  an 


Chap.  V.  15G2.     REASONS   GIVEN    FOR    THE    USE   OF   LATIN.  853 

eye  to  doctriiu;  that  Eonic  persists  in  liaving  a  language  of  her 
own.  Like  the  taking  away  ot"  the  eiip,  it  is  a  barrier  between 
the  clergy  and  the  people — a  barrier  less  impassable,  it  is  true, 
since  a  man  may  learn  Latin,  but  which,  besides  that  it  is  im- 
passable for  the  great  mass  of  mankind,  still  helps,  nevertheless, 
oven  as  respects  the  literate  classes,  to  guard  the  precincts  of  the 
sanctuary. 

Accordingly,  in  our  own  times,  it  is  only  by  reasons  of  a  more 
or  less  mystical  sort  that  its  maintenance  has  been  sought  to  be 
justified.  "'  Prayers  in  the  Latin  tongue,"  says  Chateaubriand,^ 
•'  seem  to  redouble  the  religious  feelings  of  the  multitude.  In  the 
tumult  of  his  thoughts,  and  of  the  miseries  with  which  his  life 
is  beset,  man,  as  he  pronounces  words  little  familiar,  or  even  un- 
known to  him,  seems  to  petition  for  things  that  he  wants,  and 
yet  of  which  he  is  ignorant."  The  vagueness  of  these  prayers 
constitutes  their  charm."'  The  A^agueness  of  the  thoughts,  per- 
haps ;  never  the  vagueness  resulting  from  the  words  being  un- 
known, unless,  indeed,  among  the  charms  of  prayer,  we  are  to 
reckon  the  facility  of  praying  with  words,  without  any  eflbrt  be- 
yond keeping  one's  self,  well  or  ill,  in  a  certain  abstracted  state 
more  or  less  resembling  sleep.  De  Maistre,  as  usual,  is  still  more 
frank  :  "  As  for  the  people,"  says  he,  "  if  they  do  not  understand 
the  words,  so  much  the  better.  There  is  all  the  more  respect 
and  none  the  less  intelligence."  All  the  more  respect  I  Possi- 
bly so  ;  but  what  sort  of  respect  ?  That  of  a  statue  on  its  knees. 
Is  that  the  respect  God  requires  from  intelligent  beings  ?  None 
the  less  intelligence  I  "VTe  admit  that  many  things  are  said, 
among  Roman  Catholics,  in  Latin,  which  would  not  much  enrich 
the  mind  ;  but  w^ould  they  once  begin  to  speak  in  such  a  manner 
as  to  be  understood,  they  would  soon  be  compelled  to  say  better 
things  and  more  of  them.  "  An  antique  and  inysterioiis  lan- 
guage," says  Chateaubriand  again,  "  a  language  Avhicli  has  lor 
ages  ceased  to  undergo  any  change,  is  suited  for  the  worship  of" 
the  eternal  incomprehensible  Being."  "  You  do  not  comprehend 
God,"  he  would  seem  to  say ;  "  it  is  natural,  then,  that  you 
should  address  him  in  a  language  which  you  do  not  compre- 
hend." Is  not  this,  at  bottom,  the  true  meaning  of  all  that  is 
said  to  us  on  this  subject  ?  Put  away  all  these  brilliant  pictures, 
all  these  poetical  veils — and  what  do  you  find  behind  ?  A  chap- 
let,  a  praying  machine,  and  a  man  himself  becoming  a  praying 
machine. 

'  Ginie  du  ChrUtianhme,  4ienie  partie. 

^  The  word  Ilallehijali,  wliieli  is  Ilohrew,  is  adopted,  as  it  stands,  in 
the  mass,  to  express,  by  a  foreign  AvorJ,  joys  unknown  to  this  life. — 
Innocent  III.,  Treatise  on  the  3[ass,  ii.  53. 


364  HISTORY    OF   THE    COINCIL    OF   TRENT.  Book  IV. 

We  have  said  that  the  alikii-  of  the  cup  had  been  suspended 
until  the  majority  should  be  found  disposed  to  refer  its  determina- 
tion to  the  pope. 

The  session  drew  nigh.  Whatever  form  might  be  given  to 
the  decree  for  the  reference,  that  decree  had  against  it,  in  addi- 
tion to  all  who  wanted  the  thing  regulated  in  the  council,  many 
of  those  who  blamed  the  concession  of  the  cup,  and  were  afraid 
that  the  pope  might  grant  it.  The  day  before  the  session,  the 
legates  thought  they  might  gain  some  votes  by  adding  that  the 
pope,  icith  the  consent  and  apprGhation  of  the  council,  should 
do  what  he  thought  fit ;  but  this  clause,  though  agreeable  to  the 
pope's  adversaries,  was  warmly  opposed  by  the  Roman  party, 
and  the  legates  even  felt  themselves  reproached  with  it  as  a  sort 
of  treason.  In  the  evening,  not  knowing  how  to  make  up  their 
minds,  they  sent  a  request  to  the  ambassadors  that  they  would 
not  insist  on  the  council  voting  on  it  next  day  ;  but  the  emper- 
or's party  would  not  hear  of  such  a  thing.  They  said  they 
would  rather  break  with  the  council  than  consent  again  to  any 
delay  whatever.  On  the  next  day  (session  XXII.,  Sept.  17, 
1562),  accordingly,  they  came  to  a  vote  ;  the  decree  passed,  but 
thirty-eight  prelates  voted  against  it,  and  the  same  minority  ap- 
peared in  the  session.^ 

As  for  the  almost  equally  large  minorities  which  we  have  seen 
announce  their  opinions  in  the  voting  of  decrees  concerning  the 
faith,  they  were  found,  as  usual,  very  much  diminished  in  the 
session.  Of  thirty  bishops  who  had  persisted  in  not  believing 
that  the  Do  this  involved  the  ordination  of  the  Apostles,  fifteen 
at  most  in  the  public  sitting  voted  against  the  canon  in  which 
that  opinion  is  erected  into  an  article  of  faith.  Shall  we  charge 
the  others  with  cowardice  and  inconsistency  ?  No  ;  the  incon- 
sistent, on  the  contrary,  were  those  who  were  daring  enough  not 
to  submit  immediately  to  the  infallible  voice  of  the  majority. 
Tliere  is  no  consistency  in  Roman  Cathohcism,  but  in  submis- 
sion and  silence. 

'  I7tli  September,  1562,  twenty-second  session. 


BOOK  V. 

EIGHT  MONTHS  OF  DISCUSSION  AND  INTRIGUE  WITHOUT 

A  SESSION. 


CHAPTER    I. 

(1562.) 

DISCUSSIONS  ON  ORDERS  AND   ORDINATION.       CONTINUED  PROROGA- 
TIONS. 

All  begins  anew  ;  one  might  suppose  he  had  mistaken  the  page — Eight 
successive  prorogations — Opening  of  the  debates  on  the  sacrament  of 
orders — Imprudent  haste — Are  orders  a  sacrament? — Calvin's  opin- 
ion— In  what  sense  were  orders  instituted  by  Jesus  Christ  ? — Scrip- 
tural and  historical  discussion — Roman  system — Few  advantages 
and  many  inconveniences — The  seven  orders — No  scriptural  founda- 
tion—  Difficulties  that  cannot  be  resolved  —  The  council  evades 
them — ^The  mass  the  basis  of  the  Roman  priesthood — Order  and  the 
orders — Grace  in  ordination — Endless  uncertainties  and  obscurities. 

The  farther  Ave  proceed  the  more  does  our  task  become  diffi- 
cult and  repulsive.  Isothing  can  be  more  miserably  tiresome 
than  to  find  one's  self  on  the  morrow  after  each  successive  sit- 
ting, placed  in  view  of  the  same  intrigues  and  the  same  re- 
clamations, with  the  same  facts  to  note,  and  the  same  reflections 
to  make.  In  the  more  minute  histories  of  Pallavicini  and  Sarpi, 
a  careless  reader  might  often  suppose  that  he  had  mistaken  the 
page  and  was  reading  over  again  what  he  had  read  already. 
Notwithstanding  our  utmost  efibrts  to  avoid  the  same  evil,  we 
feel  at  times  in  despair  of  success.  Thus,  with  respect  to  the 
dispute  about  the  divine  right  of  bishops — although  we  have 
spoken  about  it  so  often,  and  shall  have  to  speak  about  it  again 
— we  shall,  after  all,  have  only  indicated  its  principal  phases. 
As  for  the  reclamations  of  the  prelates,  or  the  ambassadors,  on 
the  exorbitant  influence  of  the  pope,  the  insufficiency  of  the 
reforms  that  had  been  decreed,  the  giving  to  the  legates  the  ex- 
clusive right  to  make  propositions,  and  the  tortuous  course  of 
business  in  general — we  have  spoken  as  rarely  as  possible,  and 
we  could  not  have  spoken  less  of  them  without  renouncing  the 
idea  of  giving  a  true  picture  of  the  council. 


356  HISTORY    OF   THE    COUNCIL  OF    TRENT.  Book  V. 

The  twenty-third  session  had  been  fixed  for  the  12th  of  No- 
vember, 1562.  Prorogued  eight  times,  it  took  place  only  on  the 
15th  of  July  in  the  following  year.  This  of  itself  may  suffice  to 
shew  what  a  chaos  of  embarrassments  and  discussions  we  have 
to  disentangle  and  elucidate. 

It  had  been  decreed  that  the  two  last  sacraments  should  be 
brought  under  deliberation — those  of  sacred  orders  and  marriage  ; 
but  the  very  next  day  the  French  ambassadors  renewed  their 
protest  and  their  demands.  They  represented  that  if  the  coun- 
cil proceeded  immediately  to  doctrinal  questions,  there  would  be 
none,  or  almost  none  remaining  when  their  prelates  should  ar- 
rive ;  they  insisted  that  these  divines  should  be  waited  for  until 
the  end  of  October,  and  that,  until  then,  matters  relating  to  dis- 
cipline only  should  be  taken  up.  That  same  day  the  imperial 
ambassadors  presented  an  analogous  demand.  Their  master, 
they  said,  had  been  struck,  as  everybody  had  been,  with  the 
little  time  that  had  been  given  to  disciplinary  matters,  though 
from  them  alone  was  there  any  prospect  of  the  return  of  order 
and  peace.  "He  would  rather  not,"  the  ambassadors  added, 
"  that  they  should  enter  so  deeply  into  points  of  doctrine  as  to 
vote  on  things  with  regard  to  which  Roman  Catholics  were  so 
little  agreed,  and  which  the  Church  had  hitherto  left  prudently 
in  the  shade." 

The  legates  replied  that  it  was  a  settled  rule,  adopted  since 
the  commencement  of  the  council,  to  make  the  examination  of 
points  of  doctrine  and  that  of  disciplinary  matters  proceed 
abreast ;  that  they  could  not  therefore  consent  to  the  kind  of 
suspension  that  was  asked  for  ;  that,  nevertheless,  they  would  so 
arrange  matters  that  one  only  of  the  two  remaining  sacraments 
should  be  taken  up  for  study — that  of  orders. 

They  had  their  own  reasons  for  preferring  that  one  of  the  two. 
The  deliberations  on  the  sacrament  by  which  men  are  made 
priests,  would  necessarily  revive  the  question  about  residence, 
and  it  was  of  importance,  if  they  could  no  longer  hope  to  be  able 
to  set  it  aside,  that  it  should  be  decided,  at  least,  before  the 
arrival  of  the  reinforcement  promised  by  France  to  the  partisans 
of  the  divine  right.  To  provide  against  possible  contingencies 
the  pope  sent  numerous  reinforcements  from  Italy.  Care  was 
taken,  at  the  same  time,  to  have  it  hinted  to  the  French,  and  to 
the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  in  particular,  that  after  having  delayed 
so  long,  they  had  better  give  up  altogether  the  idea  of  coming 
at  all.  "  Was  it  befitting  their  dignity  to  have  anything  to  do 
with  a  council  where  they  could  merely  show  themselves  and  no 
more,  since  the  whole  was  to  be  brought  to  a  close  in  a  few 
weeks  ?     They  could  hardly  act  any  but  a  Protestant  part  in 


Chap.  I,  1562.  ARE    ORDERS    A   TRUE   SACRAMENT?  357 

opposiiif^  tlie  decrees  already  niadc,  a  course  which  could  only 
have  the  ultimate  cii'eci  oi"  shaking,  with  the  authority  oi"  the 
council,  that  oi"  the  whole  Church,  in  France  as  well  as  else- 
where."— Nor  were  such  representations  unreasonable. 

Instead  of,  as  had  been  hitherto  done,  handing  over  all  the 
questions  collectively  to  all  the  divines,  the  latter  were  divided 
into  six  classes,  and  to  each  of  these  there  was  assigned  a  special 
department.  Moreover,  among  other  regulations,  it  was  agreed 
that  no  speech  should  exceed  half  an  hour.  It  was  not  the  first 
time  that  an  attempt  was  now  made  to  restrain  the  prolixity  of 
the  doctors  ;  but  none  of  the  rules  intended  for  that  purpose  had 
lasted  beyond  a  few  days.  In  the  absence  of  any  precise  rules 
the  council  was  often  observed  to  show  its  impatience  by  mur- 
murs, talking  among  the  members,  shuffling  of  the  feet,  &c.  ; 
practices  all  of  which  are  common  enough  in  political  assem- 
blages, but  which  many  will  be  not  a  little  surprised  to  fmd  pre- 
vailing at  the  Council  of  Trent. 

These  arrangements,  accordingly,  were  very  wise,  but  the  time 
for  their  introduction  was  ill-chosen.  Promises  had  been  made 
of  slow  procedure,  especially  with  regard  to  doctrinal  articles,  yet 
steps  were  now  taken  for  proceeding  faster  than  ever.  The 
court  of  Rome  had  ceased,  or  believed  that  it  had  ceased,  to  have 
any  further  grounds  for  alarm.  It  allowed  itself  to  run  into  that 
state  of  impatience  which  the  calmest  and  the  ablest  cannot  but 
experience  when  some  great  task  is  approaching  its  close,  and  to 
this  we  must  ascribe  those  imprudences  which  at  any  other  time 
it  would  have  avoided. 

II.  The  point  at  issue,  in  the  first  question,  was  to  determine 
"  whether  orders  be  or  be  not  a  true  sacrament  properly  so  called, 
instituted  by  Jesus  Christ,  and  not  a  simple  ceremony  for  insti- 
tutiiiff  the  ministers  of  God's  word  and  the  sacraments." 

We  might  remark,  first  of  all,  that  this  question  is  ill-stated, 
since  it  does  not  admit  any  mean  between  these  two  extreme 
opinions.  It  nowise  necessarily  follows  from  your  attacking  or- 
ders as  a  sacrament,  that  you  make  them  a  purely  human  insti- 
tution, or  even  that  you  cease  to  acknowledge  their  institution 
by  Jesus  Christ. 

As  for  the  reasons  that  lead  us  to  refuse  to  them  the  name  of 
sacrament,  we  must  refer  to  what  we  have  said  elsewhere  on  the 
sacraments  in  general.  Orders  are  one  of  those  on  which  the 
question  is  one  of  words.  If  you  will  have  it  that  sacranicntiwi 
means  oath,  then  it  is  clear  that  orders  are  a  sacrament,  for  the 
priest  swears  that  he  will  consecrate  himself  to  the  Church  ;  but 
it  is  clear,  also,  that  they  are  not  so  in  the  same  sense  as  bap- 
tism and  the  supper,  seeing  that  the  latter  are  for  all,  and  the 


358  HISTORY   OF  THE   COUNCIL    OF    TRENT.  Book  V. 

former  for  a  small  number  only.  "  If  1  have  not  put  it  (the  im- 
jDOsition  of  hands)  among  the  sacraments,"  says  Calvin,  "  it  is 
because  it  is  not  ordinary  and  common  to  all  the  faithful."* 

Sacrament  or  no  sacrament,  can  it  be  said  that  orders  were 
instituted  by  Jesus  Christ  ? 

If  by  this  people  restrict  themselves  to  the  idea  that  Jesus 
Christ  really  contemplated  establishinsf,  in  his  Church,  certain 
persons  who  should  be  specially  devoted  to  religious  matters, 
we  conceive  that  they  are  in  the  right.  "Go,"  said  he  to  liis 
Apostles,  "teach  all  nations,"  and  as  he  could  not  think  twelve 
men  would  suffice  for  this,  he  evidently  authorized  them  to  give 
themselves  assistants  and  successors. 

But  if  it  be  the  Roman  priesthood  that  is  contemplated,  with 
the  profound  separation  which  it  establishes  between  priests  and 
people,  with  the  privileges  it  arrogates  to  itself,  the  mystical 
meaning  it  attaches  to  ordination,  the  absolute  need  that  the 
Church,  according  to  it,  has  of  its  ministr}'',  then  we  deny  that 
its  institution  can  be  traced  to  Jesus  Christ,  or  to  his  Apostles, 
or  to  the  disciples  of  the  Apostles. 

Not  to  Jesus  Christ,  we  say.  Had  it  been  his  intention  to 
create  priests  in  the  Roman  sense  of  that  word,  it  must  be  ad-, 
mitted  that  the  Apostles  very  much  misunderstood  it,  and  that 
an  author  who  should  set  himself  to  trace  in  what  is  recorded  of 
their  history,  the  lineaments  of  the  Christian  priesthood,  would 
hardly  find  it  was  that  of  the  Roman  Church.  Chosen  by  the 
Master  himself,  manifestly  guided  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  they  have 
not,  nevertheless,  the  air  of  men  who  have  any  idea  that,  in  the 
Church,  they  form  a  distinct  and  separate  class.  If  they  speak 
of  their  quality  as  Apostles,  it  is  always  as  of  a  mission  which 
they  have  received,  not  as  of  an  internal  character  which  has 
been  stamped  upon  them.  If  necessaiy  to  the  Church,  it  is  as 
Apostles,  sent  out,  missionaries,  preachers  of  the  gospel ;  but  as 
for  their  being  jjriests,  pontiffs,  having  anything  else  to  do  but 
to  teach  certain  truths,  and  being,  in  fine,  required  by  the  faith- 
ful for  any  other  purposes  than  edification  and  instruction — all 
this  is  what  we  shall  never  discover  from  either  the  letter  or  the 
spirit  of  what  we  read  about  them.  And  what  they  thought  of 
themselves,  they  were  all  the  more  likely  to  think  of  those  whom 
they  associated  with  themselves.  Read  over,  from  this  point  of 
view,  Paul's  two  epistles  to  Timothy,  those  few  pages  in  which 
the  Church  of  Rome  has  contrived  to  find  so  many  words  in  her 
favour,  and  where  we,  on  the  contrary,  find  so  many  ideas  that 
are  positively  opposed  to  her.  There,  as  elsewhere,  you  will  find 
a  mission  to  be  accomplished,  an  immense  responsibility  before 

'  Christ.  Inst.,  1.  iv. 


Chap.  1    lJo2.       WHAT    rUlESTHO(JD    DID    LURIST    ESTAUI-lbll  !  369 

God  and  before  men  ;  but,  lot  us  add,  nolhin*;  more.  In  that 
multitude  ot"  directions,  of"  all  sorts,  •which  the  Ajjostlc  pives  to 
his  disciple,  no  mention  is  made  of  the  administration  of  the  sac- 
raments. Take  away  the  commission  to  teach,  to  direct,  to  re- 
prove; what  will  remain  to  Timothy,  above  the  mere  believers? 
Kothing,  absolutely  nothing.  This,  nevertheless,  was  a  question 
of  fact  as  well  as  of  doctrine.  Allusions,  granting  that  there  are 
such,  still  do  not  amount  to  proofs.  Were  the  principles  held  by 
St.  Paul  on  the  priesthood,  even  remotely,  those  of  the  Roman 
Church,  it  was  not  a  matter  in  which  he,  a  founder  of  churches, 
could,  in  writing  to  a  founder  of  churches,  fail  to  express  him- 
self with  precision.  In  his  other  epistles,  the  same  omission. 
To  whom  are  they  addressed  ?  To  the  faiiJifid  of  Corinth,  of 
Thessalonica,  of  Rome.  In  several  of  them  he  makes  no  men- 
tion of  names,  or  of  any  chiefs  whatever  ;  in  others,  if  he  gives 
some  names  which  might  be  supposed  to  be  those  of  the  pastors 
of  the  Church,  or  who,  in  fact,  were  so — these  names,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  epistle  to  the  Romans,  are  mingled  with  those  of 
persons  who  manifestly  w'ere  not  at  the  head  of  the  flock,  for 
sometimes  they  are  women,  sometimes  whole  families.  If  all 
this  do  not  prove,  as  some  sects  have  maintained,  that  there  was 
nowhere  a  distinct  and  regular  pastorate — as  little  can  we  see 
that  any  one  can  maintain,  after  having  seriously  weighed  these 
facts,  either  that  the  pastorate  was  a  priesthood,  or  that  it  acted 
in  any  fashion  the  part  which  has  been  assumed  by  the  Roman 
priesthood. 

AYill  it  be  said  that  this  opinion  weakens  the  authority  of  the 
evangelical  ministr}'  ?  We  proceed  to  see  if  this  be  true  ;  but 
were  it  true,  that  would  not  be  an  argument.  There  never  has 
been  a  usurpation  or  abuse  of  which  it  might  not  also  be  said 
that  those  that  attacked  it  assaulted  the  powder  that  profited  by  it. 
We  have  not  to  decide  whether  a  mysterious  and  indelible  con- 
secration be  or  be  not  necessar}'  to  the  authority  of  the  Gospel 
minister ;  we  have  only  to  see  in  the  writings  of  the  Apostles 
whether  such  was  the  view  they  took  of  their  functions,  and  we 
go  on  to  shew  that  there  is  nothing  of  the  kind  there.  Mean- 
while, is  the  fact  alleged  true  ?  Does  that  mysterious  and  su- 
pernatural character  tend  to  give  to  the  laity  more  respect  ibr 
the  priests,  to  the  priests  more  respect  for  themselves  ?  No. 
Merit  being  equal,  Ave  have  never  seen  the  priest  more  respected 
than  the  Protestant  pastor  ;  and  as  for  self-respect,  that  is  to  say, 
dignity  of  manners  and  language,  it  appears  to  us  incontestable 
that  the  Prostestant  clergy  are  generally  superior. 

Now,  if  the  idea  that  Rome  has  formed  of  the  priesthood,  ii" 
the  supernatural  and  divine  power  which  she  has  recognised  in 


360  HISTORY   OF   THE  COUNCIL   OF    TRENT.  Book  V. 

it,  lead  not,  in  point  of  fact,  to  any  beneficial  result  which  might 
not  be  obtained  without  it,  how  much  has  it  not  had,  and  does 
it  not  continue  to  have  that  is  bad  I  Think  but  of  that  pride, 
and  of  all  those  individual  and  collective  pretensions  that  have 
so  troubled  the  world,  and  drawn  upon  Christianity  so  many  at- 
tacks, so  many  sarcasms,  so  many  bitter  enemies,  and  say,  where 
was  the  first  source  of  all  these,  if  not  in  the  mendacious  doc- 
trine of  a  barrier  raised  by  the  hand  of  God  himself  betwixt 
pastors  and  people  ?  What  we  have  already  said  of  the  power 
of  performing,  in  the  celebration  of  mass,  a  greater  and  more 
extraordinary  miracle  than  any  of  those  by  which  Jesus  Christ 
himself  manifested  his  glory,  we  might  repeat  here  with  respect 
to  all  the  powers  that  Rome  assumes  for  her  priests.  All  that 
she  has  thought  to  give  them  of  the  striking  and  supernatural, 
is  easily  effaced  by  people  getting  accustomed  to  it ;  all  that  she 
has,  at  the  same  time,  created  in  the  way  of  pretensions,  tyranny 
and  audacity,  has  been  but  too  well  kept  from  being  effaced  by 
pride  and  interest. 

It  is  not  only  as  respects  the  essence  of  Orders  that  Rome 
seems  to  us  to  have  departed  from  the  true  apostolical  traditions. 
What  shall  we  say  of  the  complications  successively  introduced 
into  the  organization  of  a  ministry  which  appears  to  have  been 
in  the  days  of  the  Apostles  a  thing  so  simple,  so  profoundly  clear 
and  one  ?  The  Roman  Church  admits  seven  degrees  in  the  sa- 
crament of  orders,  and,  by  an  odd  caprice,  which  her  doctors  difier 
in  their  efforts  to  explain,  the  episcopate  is  not  one  of  them. 
These  orders  are  divided  into  two  classes.  Four  are  of  the  minor 
class,  those  of  porter,  exorcist,  reader,  and  acolyte.  Three  are 
of  the  major  class,  the  sub-deaconship,  the  deaconship,  and  the 
priesthood  properly  so  called.  We  cannot  blame  in  an  absolute 
manner  the  establishment  of  certain  degrees  to  be  passed  before 
reaching  the  priesthood  ;  but  this  number,  seven,  indicates  at 
once  pretensions  to  mystery  and  symmetry  more  worthy  of  an- 
cient Egypt  than  of  the  renewed  world,  and  of  Pythagoras  than 
of  Jesus  Christ. 

While  we  admit  that  the  Church  may  not  have  erred  in  estab- 
lishing lower  grades,  we  do  not  mean  to  say  that  their  institution 
has  a  scriptural  foundation,  or  is  sanctioned  by  the  example  of 
the  Apostles.  We  do  not  even  think  that  one  can  appeal  in  their 
support  to  the  institution  of  the  deaconship,  as  related  in  the  book 
of  the  Acts,  and  the  council  seems  to  us  to  have  had  recourse  to 
a  play  upon  the  words  when,  speaking  of  the  seven  orders,  it  says, 
"  Scripture  makes  positive  mention  not  only  of  priests,  but  also 
of  deacons."  Now,  in  point  of  fact,  what  do  we  read  ?  Desiring 
to  devote  themselves  entirely  to  the  care  of  souls,  the  Apostles 


Chap.  I.  1562.  THE    SE\ EN    DEGREES   OF   OllDEUS.  3Cl 

request  that  the)'  may  be  relieved  from  certain  secular  concerns. 
Seven  men  are  to  have  tlie.se  connnittod  to  them  ;  and  as  their 
functions  Avill  meanwhile  tend  also  to  the  spiritual  benefit  of  the 
Church,  they  arc  to  have  the  imposition  of  hands.  They  arc  to 
receive  the  Holy  Ghost,  and,  should  occasion  require,  take  the 
place  of  the  Apostles.  Amid  all  these  details  not  a  word  occurs 
that  leads  to  the  idea  of  this  new  office  being  instituted  as  an  in- 
termediate step  to  the  ministry.  It  was  a  ministry  apart,  and 
inferior  if  you  will,  as  respects  the  habitual  nature  ot"  its  func- 
tions, but  not  one  that  implied  inferiority  of  character.  Ste- 
phen, one  of  the  elected  seven,  is  exhibited  to  us  immediately 
afterwards  discharging  all  the  functions  of  a  pastor  and  an  Apos- 
tle. Twice  St.  PauP  enumerates  various  charges  exercised  in 
the  Church,  and  adds  nothing  that  might  lead  us  to  suppose  that 
they  were  so  many  successive  degrees.  The  functions  are  en- 
tirely parallel ;  they  present  diflbrent  branches  of  duty  among 
wdiich  each  might  make  his  choice  according  to  his  peculiar  tal- 
ents, his  convictions  of  duty,  and  the  inward  call  addressed  to  him 
by  God.  That  the  deaconship  was  at  a  very  early  period  re- 
garded as  a  step  to  the  ministry  is  very  probable.  The  institution 
does  not  exclude  this  view  of  the  matter ;  but  we  think  it  evident 
that  it  does  not  point  it  out  to  us,  and  cannot  consequently  serve 
as  a  legitimate  basis  to  the  seven  degrees  of  the  Roman  Church. 
Extreme  unction  has  led  us  to  state  beforehand  one  of  the  most 
serious  difficulties  attending  this  subject. ^  It  is  for  the  Roman 
Church  to  ask  itself  how  six  inferior  orders,  considered  necessary 
for  a  man's  reaching  the  seventh,  can  be  reconciled  with  the 
idea  of  this  last  being  a  sacrament,  and  a  sacrament  instituted 
by  Jesus  Christ.  The  only  method  of  escape  from  embarrass- 
ment would  have  been  to  make  the  six  inferior  orders  a  mere 
preparation  for  the  priesthood  ;  but  at  the  time  when  this  diffi- 
culty first  challenged  attention,  the  six  preparatory  orders  had 
long  been  considered  as  conferring  collectively  a  notable  portion 
of  the  ecclesiastical  character.  Henceforth  the  difficulty  sub- 
sists in  all  its  magnitude  :  we  have  here  a  sacrament,  which  is 
stated  to  have  been  instituted  bv  Jesus  Christ,  and  which  wo 
find  to  be  conferred  in  part  by  formalities  which  Jesus  Christ 
did  not  institute,  nor  his  Apostles  either. 

'  1  Cor.  xii.  Eph.  iv. 

'  "Wo  might  have  noticed  one  at  the  time  of  the  seventh  session,  at 
the  date  of  the  decree  on  the  sacraments  in  general.  That  of  Orders 
is  put  in  the  number  of  those  which  cannot  be  reiterated.  In  point  of 
discipline  nothing  could  be  better;  but  in  tliat  case  the  Churcli  must 
renounce  teaching  tliat  the  laying  on  of  hands,  as  mentioned  in  the 
New  Testament,  was  the  Roman  ordination,  for  St.  Paul  received  it 
twice.     (Acts  ix.  and  xiii.) 

a 


obS  HISTORY    OF   THE   COUNCIL    OF    TREIST.  Book  V, 

Did  he  at  least  insinuate  them  ?  Fain  would  the  council 
have  been  able  to  say  so.  One  divine  made  an  attempt  to  prove 
it.  Although  Jesus  Christ,  said  he,  did  not  positively  institute 
the  series  of  seven  orders,  he  suggested  it  by  going  through  the 
series  himself.  When  he  drove  the  sellers  out  of  the  temple, 
was  he  not  a  porter  ?  In  curing  those  possessed  by  devils,  an 
exorcist  ?  In  reading  and  explaining  the  Scriptures,  a  reader  ? 
In  concerning  himself  about  preparations  for  the  supper,  a  dea- 
con ?  In  celebrating  it,  a  priest  ?  This  far-fetched  argument 
AA^ould  be  less  ridiculous  did  it  not  leave  unexplained  why  the 
Apostles  speak  of  the  deaconship  as  quite  a  new  institution,  sug- 
gested to  them  as  required  by  new  exigencies,  and  not  connected 
in  their  minds  with  any  injunction,  any  saying  addressed  to  them 
by  their  master. 

Another  rock  against  which  the  discussion  constantly  struck, 
was  the  making  the  seven  orders  seven  sacraments,  coimected 
together  by  their  concurring  to  the  same  end,  yet  distinct  as  they 
each  and  all  confer  something  sacramental.  Some  of  the  divines 
did  not  shrink  from  admitting  this  idea.  In  their  view  there  was 
something  mysterious  and  divine  in  it ;  one  sole  sacrament  and 
seve7t  sacraments  seemed  to  them  happily  to  recall  the  idea  of 
one  God  in  three  persons. 

After  long  and  solemn  discussions,^  the  council  durst  not  pro- 
nounce in  favour  either  of  the  daring  mysticism  of  the  one  party, 
or  the  timid  puerilities  of  the  other.  Repeating  what  it  had 
done  so  often  before,  it  left  vague  all  that  it  did  not  feel  itself 
in  a  condition  to  determine. 

Thus,  in  the  first  chapter,  it  confined  itself  to  stating  the  exist- 
ence of  a  visible  priesthood  established  by  God  in  the  Church  ; 
but  the  proof  of  it  which  it  adduces  is  valid  for  those  only  who 
admit  without  contestation  all  the  anterior  decrees  on  the  sup- 
per and  the  mass.  "  In  all  religions,  the  idea  of  a  sacrifice  to 
be  offered,  and  that  of  a  priesthood  instituted  for  the  purpose  of 
ofTering  it,  have  been  by  the  will  of  God  intimately  associated 
together.  Since  then  there  is  in  tlie  Church  a  sacrifice,  the 
mass,  there  is  necessarily  a  priesthood."  This  line  of  argument 
is  far  from  wise,  since  it  exposes  the  Roman  priesthood  to  all 
the  objections  that  may  be  brought  against  the  real  presence,  the 
mass,  &c.  On  the  other  hand,  is  it  at  least  true  to  say,  that  the 
two  things  have  always  existed  together  and  advanced  abreast  ? 
No.  The  Roman  priesthood  appears  to  us  to  have  been  fully 
constituted  long  beibre  the  mass  was  the  mass.     The  uniform 

*  The  first  congregation  general,  held  23d  September,  reckoned,  be- 
sides the  legates,  three  patriarchs,  eighteen  archbisliops,  a  liundred  and 
forty-six  bishops,  five  generals  of  orders,  and  eighty-four  divines. 


Chap.1.  1J02.     rillST    THE    J'RIEST,   THEN    A   SACKII-ICE.  368 

conjunction  of  priesthood  and  sacrifice  in  other  rclif^ions  is  of 
small  importance  ;  here,  it  is  not  the  priesthood  that  has  been 
instituted  for  the  sacriiicc,  it  is  the  sacrilicc  that  has  been  grad- 
ually introduced  in  order  to  complete  and  legitimize  the  priest- 
hood. In  the  sixth,  in  the  eighth  century,  at  the  time  when 
there  began  to  be  priests  in  the  full  strictness  of  the  word,  while 
the  transition  was  hardly  more  than  in  the  bud,  the  people 
might  have  said,  like  Isaac  to  Abraham,  "  Behold  a  priest  and 
an  altar,  but  where  is  the  victim  ?"  And  it  was  necessary,  no 
doubt,  that  one  should  be  found. 

The  line  of  argument  in  the  second  article  is  neither  more 
solid  nor  more  prudent.  "  The  priestly  ministry  being  a  Divine 
thing  it  was  natural  that  there  should  be  several  orders  of  min- 
isters." Nothing  more  natural,  in  fact,  if  the  inferior  orders  are 
only  a  preparation  for  the  priesthood,  but  if  they  form  a  part  of 
it  then  the  argument  is  all  the  other  way  ;  the  more  the  priest- 
hood is  divine,  the  more  repugnant  is  its  being  split  into  parts. 
That,  therefore,  was  the  place  at  which  the  council  behoved  to 
have  said  whether  the  inferior  orders  are  sacraments  or  parts  of 
a  sacrament,  or  a  mere  preparatory  course  to  the  priesthood, 
but,  as  in  the  first  article,  it  said  nothing.  Thus,  in  the  first, 
it  speaks  of  order  ;  in  the  second,  of  orders  ;  in  the  third  it  re- 
turns to  the  word  order.  But  in  what  manner  the  orders  are 
the  order,  and  the  order  is  the  orders,  it  does  not  say. 

Another  very  serious  question,  serious,  if  not  in  itself,  at  least 
as  respects  the  exactness  of  the  system,  is  also  evaded  in  the 
third  article.  It  is  there  said  that  the  order  is  truly  and  prop- 
erly one  of  the  Church's  sacraments  ;  and  the  reason  adduced  is 
because  grace  is  conferred  by  ordination.  In  support  of  this,  the 
words  of  yt.  Paul  to  Timothy  are  adduced  :  "  Wherefore  I  put 
thee  in  remembrance  that  thou  stir  up  the  gift  of  God  which  is 
in  thee,  by  the  putting  on  of  my  hands."  But  the  Church  itself 
has  never  taught  that  all  that  confers  grace  is  in  virtue  of  that 
alone  a  sacrament ;  we  see  cases,  besides,  of  the  Apostles  giving 
the  imposition  of  hands  to  persons  whom  they  had  no  idea  of 
making  pastors.  Moreover,  there  had  been  great  disputes  on  the 
question  how  we  are  to  know  Avhat  kind  of  grace  is  conferred  in 
ordination.  On  the  one  hand,  it  was  very  difficult  to  specify 
any  which  the  priest  might  not  already  have  received  or  might 
not  yet  receive,  as  simply  one  of  the  faithful,  in  one  or  anotlier 
of  the  other  sacraments  ;  on  the  other,  no  sooner  did  people  set 
themselves  to  speak  of  graces  exclusively  appropriated  to  the 
functions  of  his  ministry,  tiian  the  objection  was  raised  that  if 
the  priest  docs  not  draw  any  fruit  for  himself  from  ordination  it 
no  longer  answers  the  idea  of  a  sacrament.     Many  would  fain 


364  HISTORY   OF   THE    COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  V. 

have  inserted  that  it  confers  both  these  kinds  of  grace  at  once, 
inward  graces  for  the  priest's  individual  sanctification,  and  out- 
ward graces  for  the  sanctification  of  tlie  faithful  under  his  min- 
istry ;  but  still  this  distinction  had  many  opponents,  and  it  was 
thought  best  to  say  nothing. 

Nothinsf  has  been  more  attacked  in  the  Reformation  than  the 
uncertainty  which,  we  are  told,  it  leaves  on  the  character  and 
authority  of  pastors.  Had  we  to  refute  this  objection  we  might 
observe  that  that  is  assumed  as  a  fact  which  Protestants  deny, 
and  which  must  first  of  all  be  proved,  namely,  the  necessity  of 
a  priesthood  precisely  such  as  that  of  Rome.  The  Protestant 
pastor  would,  in  fact,  be  very  much  embarrassed  if  asked  to  pro- 
duce his  authority  for  remitting  sins,  or  renewing  daily  on  the 
altar,  with  a  few  words,  the  sacrifice  ofiered  by  Jesus  Christ  on 
Calvary ;  but  if  he  confine  himself  to  the  functions  positively  pre- 
scribed for  him  in  the  New  Testament,  particularly  in  the  two 
Epistles  to  Timoth}^  the  true  code  of  instructions  in  this  matter, 
he  does  not  perceive  that  anything  is  wanting  to  him  for  the 
exercise  of  all  of  them,  and  we  see  that  his  authority  is,  in  fact, 
far  less  contested  and  far  less  attacked  than  is  that  of  the  priests 
where  these  are  not  omnipotent.  But  the  details  into  which 
we  have  gone  authorize  our  giving  quite  a  difierent  reply.  You 
affirm,  we  should  say,  that  the  non-Roman  pastor  cannot  explain 
in  what  the  ordination  which  he  has  received  consists.  Can 
the  priest  do  so  really  any  better  ?  Does  not  this  flimsy  coating 
of  logic  and  assurance  conceal  some  uncertainty,  some  serious 
difficulty  ?  Two  hundred  doctors,  twenty  sittings,  speeches  and 
discussions  without  end,  and  then,  at  the  close,  a  decree  which 
promises  proofs  and  gives  mere  assertions,  three  canons  which 
are  silent  on  three  matters  that  are  absolutely  necessary  to  be 
known  in  order  to  the  right  understanding  of  what  they  say — 
such  is  the  answer  which  this  history  would  furnish  for  us. 


CHAPTEE    II. 

(15G2.) 
DISCUSSIONS  OF  THE  DIVINE  RIGHT  OF  THE  EPISCOrACY  AGAIN. 

The  hierarchy — Is  Episcopacy  to  be  found  in  the  New  Testament — In 
what  sense'  it  is  legitimate — Contradictions  of  the  Roman  system — 
IIow  these  were  removed  at  Trent — The  old  question  of  the  divine 
right  changes  its  aspect — It  becomes  simplified  on  the  one  hand,  and 
complicated  on  the  other — New  efforts  to  leave  the  pope  out  in  the 
discussion  of  it. 

We  how  come  to  another  article  in  which  there  was  more 
need  than  ever  to  evade  difficulties.  It  is  that  concerning  the 
hierarchy. 

It  is  a  point  which  we  can  concede  that  the  sacerdotal  hierar- 
chy, like  the  succession  of  orders,  is  not  in  itself  a  bad  thing  and 
to  be  condemned.  If  we  disengage  it,  in  our  own  mind,  from 
the  odiousness  too  often  charged  against  it,  Ave  come  to  the  simple 
idea  of  a  pastor  chosen  from  among  some  others  to  superintend 
them,  direct  them,  and,  should  the  occasion  require,  censure 
them.  Such  a  pastor  will  naturally  hold  always  the  first  rank. 
As  respects  ordinary  functions  he  w^ill  remain  on  an  equality 
with  his  colleagues ;  as  for  the  extraordinary,  consecrations,  in- 
stallations, dedications,  they  will  be  devolved  upon  him,  be  it  of 
right,  but  of  right  purely  ecclesiastical  and  human,  or  simply  in 
consequence  of  the  position  he  occupies.  At  Geneva,  for  exam- 
ple, ahhough  the  pastors  are  all  equal,  it  is  their  yearly  presi- 
dent who  is  charged  with  the  conferring  of  the  ministerial  char- 
acter by  the  imposition  of  hands. 

Such  is  the  sole  reasonable  and  historically  true  origin  that 
can  be  assigned  to  the  episcopate.  All  the  attempts  that  have 
been  made  for  the  discovery  in  the  writings  of  the  Apostles  of 
some  traces  of  inequality  among  the  Frcshytcri  (tioin  wliich 
ivcsbyter  and  ^^/-iV.s/)  and  the  Episcopi  break  down  entirely, 
alike  before  ideas  and  words,  before  the  general  tenor  and  the 
details.  Even  were  these  attempts  a  little  less  fruitless  it  would 
be  a  powerful  argument  at  once  against  the  Roman  system  that 
so  laborious  a  search  must  be  made  for  its  germs,  without  find- 
ing in  the  whole  New  Testament  a  single  formal  mention  of  a 
true  inequality  between  bishops  and  presbyters.      But  not  even 


366  HISTORY   OF   THE    COUNCIL   OF   TRENT,  Book  V. 

the  germs  are  to  be  found  there  ;  wherever  men  may  fancy  they 
have  found  them  we  could  shew  close  at  hand  something  that 
destroys  them.  The  words  priest  and  bisliop,  elder  and  over- 
seer, we  ought  to  say,  for  such  is  the  true  meaning,  are  perpetu- 
ally used  there  the  one  for  the  other.  AYere  this  the  case  but 
once  or  twice  we  might  already  conclude  from  it  that  this  ques- 
tion was  not  for  the  Apostles  a  question  of  importance,  and,  still 
less,  a  question  of  divine  right.  Can  any  one  figure  to  himself 
a  Roman  Catholic  so  ignorant  or  so  careless  about  the  right  use 
of  terms  as  to  call  his  parish  priest  bishop,  and  his  bishop  parish 
priest  ?  But  it  is  not  once  or  twice,  it  is  everywhere  that  the 
Apostles  fall  into  this  confusion  of  terms.  "  I  left  thee  in  Crete," 
says  St.  Paul  to  Titus,  "  that  thou  shouldest  set  in  order  the 
things  that  are  wanting  and  ordain  elders  in  every  city  as  I  had 
appointed  thee  :  If  any  be  blameless,  the  husband  of  one  wife, 
having  faithful  children.  .  .  .  For  a  bishop  must  be  blameless, 
as  the  steward  of  God."  Thus  we  have  elder  at  the  commence- 
ment and  bishop  at  the  end,  with  a  for  connecting  them.  In 
the  book  of  the  Acts  (chap,  xx.)  Paul  sends  for  the  elders  of  the 
Church  of  Ephesus  and  tells  them  among  other  things  that  the 
Holy  Ghost  had  made  them  bishops,  to  feed  the  Church  of  God. 
Elsewhere  it  is  St.  Peter  himself  who  addresses  the  elders,  and 
employs  for  the  designation  of  their  functions  the  Greek  verb 
episkopein,  to  oversee,  which  ought  to  be  applied  only  to  bishops. 
At  another  place  (1  Tim.  iii.),  in  a  passage  on  the  duties  of  the 
ministers  of  the  Church,  St.  Paul  speaks  first  of  bishops  and 
next  of  deacons,  and  betwixt  those  two  classes  speaks  of  none. 
"  Likivise  must  the  deacons,"  says  he,  "  be  grave,"  &c.  Else- 
where he  names  the  episcopi  without  naming  the  presbyteri,  or 
the  presbyteri  without  naming  the  episcojn,  and  all  that  he  says 
of  the  one  he  says  of  the  other.  They  had  to  receive  the  same 
ordination,  to  fulfil  the  same  conditions ;  there  is  nothing,  in 
a  word,  to  indicate  any  superiority  or  inferiority  whatever.  If 
these  two  words  were  not  in  his  view  synonymous,  if  he  believed 
the  one  to  be  superior  to  the  other,  and  that  by  Divine  right,  the 
manner  in  which  he  confounds  the  two,  would  indicate  not  only 
negligence  but  the  most  complete  want  of  commen  sense. 

Thus,  however  ancient  may  be  the  tradition  in  virtue  of  which 
bishops  are  chiefs  of  the  Church,  whatever  reasons  of  discipline, 
unity,  and  order,  may  be  urged  in  its  favour,  it  remains  evident 
that  the  superiority  of  the  bishops  over  the  presbyters  or  priests 
is  a  matter  of  ecclesiastical  arrangement,  and  is  human  and 
mutable. 

This  being  laid  down  as  incontrovertible,  the  episcopate  not 
being  in  Scripture,  had  the  Church  any  right  to  establish  it  ? 


Chap.  II.  i:)6-2.      THE    ROMAN    EPISCOPATE    NOT    AN    ORDER.  307 

The  question  is  double,  and  we  must,  first  of  all,  clearly  sepa- 
rate its  two  i'aces. 

As  soon  as  a  church  has  more  than  one  pastor  it  is  natural 
and  necessary  that  one  should  preside  over  the  rest.  It  is  natu- 
ral too,  we  have  said,  though  less  necessary,  that  certain  func- 
tions should  be  reserved  to  him.  In  fine,  should  the  Church 
see  fit  that  this  precedency  should  be  for  life,  that  he  who  exer- 
cises it  should  govern  with  sovereign  power,  that  he  should  nomi- 
nate to  all  charges,  and  should  have  a  right  to  all  the  honours, 
this  is  neither  necessary,  nor,  according  to  us,  natural  and  proper, 
but  still  it  is  not  contrary  to  the  essence  of  the  pastorate.  It 
produces  an  inequality  of  jurisdictions,  not  of  powers,  or  if  you 
will,  the  administrative  powers  are  unequal,  but  the  spiritual 
powers  remain  the  same. 

Religious  society,  then,  hke  civil  society,  can  give  to  the  ad- 
ministrative authority  of  its  first  magistrates  as  great  a  superior- 
ity as  it  may  think  proper  ;  but  as  respects  spiritual  authority,  if 
the  equality  of  pastors  is  taught  in  the  Scriptures  we  do  not  see 
what  right  the  Church  has  to  disturb  it.  The  very  idea  of  sac- 
rament which  the  Church  of  Rome  has  attached  to  ordination  is 
an  additional  argument  against  the  spiritual  supremacy  of  the 
bishops.  A  sacrament  may  have  effects  more  or  less  marked 
according  to  the  more  or  less  excellence  of  the  dispositions  of 
those  who  receive  it,  but,  in  point  of  principle,  it  is  inadmissible 
that  the  same  sacrament  should  confer  on  some  more,  on  others 
less. 

It  is  in  order  to  escape  this  objection  that  the  Church  of  Rome 
has  viewed  the  series  of  orders  as  closed  at  the  seventh,  and  that 
the  Council  of  Trent  confirmed  that  view.  The  episcopate  is  not 
reputed  as  order,  but  as  an  office  in  the  order.  This  bishop  is 
no  more  a  priest  than  is  a  mere  parish  priest ;  he  is  a  priest 
charged  with  superior  functions. 

Shall  we  accept  this  distinction  ?  The  Church  must  neces- 
sarily herself  accept  the  consequences  of  it ;  and  we  can  prove 
that  she  does  not  accept  them.  If  the  bishop  has  only  a  superi- 
ority of  office,  and  not  of  real  powers,  if  he  be  no  more  priest 
than  a  priest,  then  a  spiritual  act  cannot  be  null  from  the  sole 
circumstance  of  his  having  had  no  part  in  it.  But,  ask  the 
Church  of  Rome  what  she  thinks,  for  example,  of  an  ordination 
performed  by  a  simple  priest.  She  would  pronounce  it  null. 
Of  confirmation  administered  by  him,  null  also  ;  null,  mark 
well,  not  only  in  the  administrative  point  of  view,  but  further, 
and  especially  in  the  sacramental.  The  child  confirmed  by  a 
priest  is  not  confirmed  ;  the  layman  ordained  by  a  priest  remains 
to  all  intents  and  purposes  a  layman  still.     There  are  then  reallv 


3G8  HISTORY    OF   THE    COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  V. 

in  the  bishop  spiritual  powers  which  the  priest  has  not,  and  he 
cannot  even  delegate  those  powers  to  a  priest.  It  must  be  him- 
self that  confirms  and  himself  that  ordains,  in  such  wise  that  if 
all  the  bishops  of  the  Church,  including  the  pope,  were  once  to 
disappear,  there  would  be  no  longer  the  means  of  having  new 
priests,  and  the  priesthood  would  be  at  an  end.  Here,  then,  we 
have  spiritual  inequality  in  all  its  rigour.  A  hundred  thousand 
priests  all  laying  hands  on  a  man,  could  not  make  him  a  priest. 
The  bishop  can  here  do  nothing  ;  the  pope  himself,  according  to 
most  canonists,  cannot  give  a  priest,  without  having  first  made 
him  a  bishop,  the  right  to  confer  orders.  There  is  then  func- 
tionally in  the  bishop  something  more  than  in  the  priest.  This 
something  cannot  be  delegated  ;  accordingly,  it  is  not  simply  and 
solely  an  affair  of  jurisdiction.  "VThy  is  it  natural  that  a  priest 
should  not  be  able  to  delegate  his  functions  to  a  deacon  ?  Be- 
cause the  priest  has  received  seven  orders,  and  the  deacon  only 
six.  It  is  contradictory,  then,  tliat  the  episcopate  should  not  be 
an  eighth  order,  and  that  there  should  be  functions  for  which 
the  men  of  the  seventh,  the  priests,  are  radically  and  absolutely 
unfit. 

All  this  was  said  in  the  council,  with  many  delicate  reserva- 
tions, it  is  true,  and  still  more  with  many  protestations  on  the 
part  of  divines,  that  they  by  no  means  sought  to  unsettle  an  or- 
ganization that  had  been  sanctioned  by  ages.  All  they  w^anted, 
they  said,  was  to  have  the  question  well  stated  and  elucidated  ; 
but  they  elucidated  it  a  great  deal  too  much,  and  having  done 
so,  had  the  air  of  stopping  only  from  motives  of  complaisance 
and  respect.  Many  of  the  speeches  made  on  this  occasion  seem, 
to  the  extent  of  three-lburths,  to  have  been  written  by  learned 
men  who  ^vere  opposed  to  the  Roman  episcopate.  Scriptural 
difficulties,  historical  difficulties,  difficulties  arising  from  the 
theory  of  the  orders,  all  is  there ;  then,  all  at  once,  the  speaker 
wheels  right  about  and  concludes — as  one  could  hardly  avoid 
concluding  in  the  presence  of  two  hundred  bishops. 

This  discussion  led  to  a  curious  result,  that  of  changing  the 
face  of  the  old  question  of  the  divine  right.  The  reader  will  re- 
member how  it  began.  It  was  in  15-16,  at  the  time  of  the  first 
discussion  on  residence.  ISTothing  was  contemplated  in  the  first 
instance  beyond  the  determination  of  the  nature  of  a  bishop's  ob- 
ligation to  residence.  Was  it  an  obligation  of  divine  right,  that 
is  to  say,  emanating  immediately  from  God,  or  an  obligation 
of  papal  right,  that  is  to  say,  emanating  from  the  pope,  universal 
and  only  bishop,  of  whom  all  the  rest,  in  this  system,  are  only 
the  delegates  and  the  vicars  ?  We  have  seen  how  the  court  of 
Rome  held  to  this  last  opinion,  and  how,  in  despair  of  having  it 


CilAP.  II.  1502.  THi:   POPEDOM— COMPLICATION.  369 

proclaimed  by  the  council,  it  had  always  contrived  so  to  manage 
that  nothing  should  be  decided  on  the  subject. 

In  presence  of  the  perilous  difficulties  which  came  to  be  started 
on  the  very  nature  and  the  essence  of  the  episcopal  authority,  the 
question  widened  out  and  became  complicated.  It  was  not  only 
in  its  bearings  on  residence  and  the  pope  that  people  felt  them- 
selves obliged  to  discuss  it.  "  Is  it  by  divine  right,  or  only  by 
ecclesiastical  and  pajial  right,  that  the  bishop  is  superior  to  the 
priest?"  Such  was  the  problem  which  was  to  be  agitated,  only 
to  be  finally  left  without  solution,  the  last  year  of  the  council. 

Had  it  been  possible  in  this  case  to  attack  and  to  resolve  but 
the  half,  that,  to  wit,  which  concerns  the  inferiority  of  the  priests, 
the  council  might  easily  have  come  to  an  agreement.  The 
bishops  of  all  countries,  and  of  all  parties,  asked  nothing  better 
than  to  have  to  return  to  their  dioceses  with  this  additional 
buckler  against  the  pretensions  of  their  clergy.  Not,  however, 
that  even  then,  the  question  would  have  been  absolutely  without 
thorns.  If  this  superiority  of  bishops  over  priests  be  of  divine 
right,  that  is  to  say,  willed,  ordained,  and  instituted  by  God 
himself — the  silence  of  the  Scripture  becomes  an  argument  of 
such  force,  that  it  is  almost  impossible  to  get  over  it. 

Nevertheless,  we  have  no  doubt  that  many  would  have  been 
bold  enough  to  do  so ;  but  the  Roman  party  felt,  that  on  the  divine 
right  being  once  declared  with  regard  to  the  inferior  clcTgy,  it 
would  become  impossible  not  to  declare  it  also  with  regard  to  the 
pope.  If  the  bishops  possess  anything  whatever  that  does  not 
come  from  him,  but  directly  from  God,  it  can  hardly  any  longer 
be  said,  correctly,  that  they  exist  only  by  him.  It  was  with  this 
feeling,  then,  that  the  Roman  party  again  set  themselves  to  have 
the  question  set  aside  under  this  form,  as  they  had  so  often  before 
set  it  aside  under  the  other. 


CHAPTER   III. 

(1562.) 

DISCUSSION    OF    THE  SUPREMACY    OF    THE    POPE.       DANGEROUS 

QUESTIONS. 

The  popedom — Thou  art  Peter — St.  Peter  in  the  New  Testament — ^His- 
tory— Writings — Is  tradition  more  favourable — How  the  Fathers  ex- 
plained Thou  art  Peter — Whatever  Peter  may  have  been,  is  the  pope 
his  successor — Chronological  difficulties — What  is  required  in  order 
to  the  testimony  of  the  Fathers  being  conclusive — Irenaeus — The  apos- 
tolical co7istitutioiis  —  The  Roman  element — Internal  difficulties — 
How  to  link  the  chain — Independence  of  the  Apostles  and  of  all  the 
pastors  established  by  them — The  patriarchs — The  right  of  conquest 
no  right — Contrast  between  the  embarrassment  of  the  Church's  doc- 
tors, and  the  hardihood  of  the  popes — Gregory  XVI.  in  1832 — Some 
facts — ^Nice — Carthage — Gregory  I. 

Already  it  had  only  been  by  dint  of  skilful  management  and 
address  that  the  council  had  succeeded  in  keeping  the  pope  out 
of  sight  in  the  first  debates  on  the  sacrament  of  orders.  The 
more,  in  fact,  the  members  were  at  one  in  recognising  him  as,  in 
point  of  presidency  and  jurisdiction,  supreme  head  of  the  Church, 
the  more  were  they  puzzled,  in  the  theoretical  and  sacramental 
point  of  view,  where  to  find  a  place  and  a  rank  for  him.  All  the 
reasons  they  had  had  for  not  making  an  eighth  order  of  the  Epis- 
copate, might  be  urged  for  not  making  a  ninth  of  the  pope  ;  but, 
on  the  other  hajid,  the  superiority  of  the  pope's  spiritual  powers 
was  so  evident,  at  least  in  fact,  that  it  would  have  been  mani- 
festly absurd  to  make  him  again  no  more  than  a  priest,  equal  to 
others  in  point  of  character,  and  superior  merely  as  respects  his 
office.  It  was  seen,  although  it  was  not  avowed,  that  though 
the  administrative  supremacy  of  the  pope  might  dispense  with 
the  testimony  of  the  Scripture,  his  spiritual  supremacy  could  not 
but  require  to  be  precisely  and  formally  indicated  there,  if  not  in 
words,  at  least  in  facts,  the  sole  unexceptionable  commentary  on 
words.  With  the  utmost  possible  willingness  to  leave  him  in 
possession  of  all  his  rights,  it  was  very  difficult,  little  as  people 
set  themselves  to  reason  and  search  for  proofs,  not  to  feel  that  a 
power  of  that  importance  must  become  doubtful,  and  more  than 


riiAP.  III.  1502.      ST.  I'ETER   IN   THE    NEW    TESTA.MENT.  871 

doubtful,  from  the  moment  that  it  was  found  that  there  is  not  a 
vestige  of  it  in  the  New  Testament. 

Not  a  vestige,  we  say.  "What  then  do  we  make  of  the  famous 
passage,  "  Thou  art  Peter,  and  upon  this  rock  I  will  build  my 
Church  ?" 

What  do  we  make  of  it  ?  Why,  what  we  have  over  made, 
and  ever  will  make  of  all  isolated  passages  which  the  Scripture 
and  scriptural  facts  have  left  in  their  isolation. 

First  of  all,  and  this  is  very  serious — it  is  only  in  one  of  the 
Gospels,  St.  Matthew,  that  we  read  these  words.     "VYe  by  no 
means,  hence,  conclude  that  they  must  be  considered  as  apoci^- 
phal ;  but  had  they  had  originally  the  force  and  meaning  at- 
tached to  them  afterwards,  who  shall  explain  to  us  the  omission 
of  them  in  the  three  other  historians  of  Christ  ?    One  thing  alone 
could  make  this  omission,  of  which  we  think  too  little  notice  has 
been  taken,  a  little  less  extraordinary ;  and  that  is,  that  these 
three  historians  should  have  omitted  the  whole  conversation  in 
which  St.  Matthew  has  introduced  these  words.     But  no  !  turn 
to  St.  Mark,  the  abridger  of  St.  Matthew,  who  has  copied  from 
him  almost  word  for  word,  all  that  immediately  precedes,  and 
all  that  follows.    He  omits  only  three  or  four  lines,  and  those  the 
very  lines  in  question.     Turn  to  St.  Luke,  habitually  so  minute 
in  details,  and  you  find   him  relate  all  the  rest,  yet  he  equally 
omits  them.     Turn  to  St.  John,  who  wrote  after  the  other  three, 
and  must  have  been  a  witness  of  the  consequences  that  those 
words  behoved  to  have  had,  if  they  really  had  such  consequences, 
and  him  too  we  find  not  deeming  them  of  such  importance  as 
that  they  might  not  be  omitted.    Thus,  let  the  Roman  Catholic, 
who  after  having  seen  it  so  often  repeated  in  his  church,  could 
not  feel  surprised  were  he  to  find  it  appear  in  twenty  differertt 
places  in  the  New  Testament,  know,  that  he  will  find  it  there 
only  in  one,  although  the  mere  course  of  the  narratives  called 
for  its  being  there  at  least  in  four.      Let  this,  then,  or  any  other 
Roman  Catholic,  imagine  himself  engaged  in  writing  a  life  of 
Christ,  and  let  him  tell  us  if  he  would  have  forgotten  these 
words,  and  if  he  could  understand  how  three  out  of  four  could 
have  agreed  in  forgetting  them,  and  that,  too,  in  relating  the 
very  conversation  that  led  to  them. 

In  the  second  place,  if  there  be  a  point  where  the  authority 
of  tradition  ought  to  go  for  nothing,  in  so  far  as  not  found  to  be 
clearly  based  on  Scripture,  it  is  this.  Here,  in  fact,  we  have 
not  to  do  with  an  idea,  of  which,  as  of  some  others,  it  may  be 
said,  that  Jesus  Christ  has  been  content  to  leave  it  to  his  Church, 
as  it  were,  in  the  germ,  committing  the  care  of  its  development 
to  human  intelligence,  aided  bv  the  Holv  Ghost.      But  we  liave 


372  HISTORY    OF  THE   COUNCIL  OF  TRENT.  Book  V. 

to  do  with  a  fact ;  and  a  fact  which  might,  and  ought,  if  the 
Apostles  had  admitted  it,  to  have  distinctly  developed  itself  from 
the  veiy  earliest  days  of  the  Church,  and  of  which  we  are  en- 
titled to  desire  to  have  traces  immediately  after  the  Saviour's 
death. 

"  All  the  Apostles,"  says  Pallavicini,  "  were  not  the  less  sub- 
ject to  St.  Peter — although  such  were  their  virtue  and  wisdom, 
that  hardly  was  there  ever  an  occasion  for  his  exercising  this 
jurisdiction."  Hardly  ever,  i.s  saying  too  much  ;  7iot  at  all,  is 
what  ought  to  be  said,  inasmuch  as  we  see,  in  the  whole  history 
of  the  Apostles,  but  one  of  their  number  that  was  ever  reproved 
by  another,  and  the  Apostle  thus  reproved  is  no  other  than  St. 
Peter.  "  I  withstood  him  to  the  face,"'  says  St.  Paul,  "  because 
he  was  to  be  blamed."  But  let  us  leave  these  details  ;  the  ques- 
tion does  not  lie  there.  That  Peter,  supposing  him  to  have  been 
head  of  the  Church,  should  not,  in  fact,  have  had  any  occasion 
to  reprove,  to  punish,  and  to  depose  the  Apostles,  is  very  proba- 
ble ;  but  it  is  evident  that  he  must  have  had  occasion  every  day 
to  intervene  in  the  direction  of  their  labours,  in  the  establishment 
of  churches,  pastors,  and  bishops,  since  so  much  is  said  to  us 
about  bishops — in  all  those  things  in  fine,  in  which  the  pope 
maintains  that  he  has  a  call  from  God  to  intervene. 

Assuming  this,  take  the  book  of  the  Acts,  and  ask  yourselves, 
but  seriously,  and  as  in  God's  presence,  if  that  piece  of  writing 
leaves  you  with  the  impression  that  Peter  was  the  head  of  the 
Church,  that  he  considered  himself  as  such,  that  his  colleagues 
recognised  him  as  such. 

In  the  first  five  or  six  chapters,  it  is  true,  we  see  him  in  the 
first  rank.  On  the  day  of  Pentecost,  it  is  he  that  makes  a  dis- 
course to  the  people.  Shortly  after,  immediately  on  the  efiecting 
of  a  miraculous  cure,  it  is  he,  too,  that  addresses  the  crowd.  It 
is  he,  in  fine,  that  pleads  the  cause  of  the  infant  church  at  the 
bar  of  the  magistracy. 

Well,  then,  in  these  very  chapters,  we  may  challenge  any  one 
to  point  to  a  phrase,  or  so  much  as  a  word,  from  which  it  can 
be  inferred  that  Peter  exercised  any  supremacy  whatever,  or  that 
he  did  anything  in  virtue  of  some  special  office,  peculiar  to  him- 
self Such  as  we  see  him  in  the  Gospels,  even  before  his  Master 
addressed  to  him  the  words  which  have  been  so  much  abused, 
such  do  we  see  him  also  here  ;  prompt  to  put  himself  forward, 
prompt  to  speak,  except  that  he  had  sometimes  shown  little  ma- 
turity in  his  ideas,  whereas  now,  directed  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  he 
speaks  as  his  Master  would  have  spoken.  Next,  amid  these  de- 
tails which,  strictly  speaking,  might  be  reconciled  Avith  the  fact 
of  !i   certain  superiority,  we  behold  others  which  cannot  be  so 


Chap.  III.  1502.      ST.  PETER   AMONG    HIS    COLLEAGUES.  '-^'6 

reconciled  Avitli  it,  and  others  still  that  arc  positively  contrai-y 
to  it. 

First,  then,  all  that  Peter  docs  the  other  Apostles  do,  and  that 
without  the  slightest  indication  of  direction  or  command  on  his 
part.  After  having  reported  his  iirst  address,  the  historian  says 
that  the  faithful  "  continued  steadfastly  in  the  Apostles'  doctrhie," 
and  every  time  he  recurs  to  the  union  of  the  new  brethren,  it  is 
the  Apostles  in  a  body  whom  he  represents  as  the  heads  of  the 
Church.  In  the  cure  wrought  on  the  lame  man,  Peter,  though 
accompanied  by  John,  seems  to  have  acted  alone,  but  it  had 
been  said  shortly  before  that  many  wonders  and  signs  were  done 
by  the  Apostles.^  \Yas  a  successor  to  Judas  to  be  elected  ?  It 
is  Peter  that  makes  the  proposal,  but  he  does  nothing  more.  He 
ordains  in  no  way  whatever ;  he  says  nothing  that  seems  to  come 
from  a  man  in  a  position  to  ordain.  Nevertheless,  he  was  not, 
at  that  moment,  alone  with  his  old  colleagues,  to  whom  one 
might  imagine  that  he  might  possibly,  from  a  kindly  feeling, 
avoid  making  a  display  of  his  authority ;  above  a  hundred  dis- 
ciples were  present.  On  the  proposal  being  acceded  to,  is  it  he, 
do  we  find,  that  is  to  name  the  person  to  be  appointed  ?  Not  at 
all.  He  says  nothing  about  him ;  nobody  mentions  him.  It  is 
the  assembled  believers  that  present  two  candidates,  and  it  is 
the  lot  that  decides.  Does  Peter  proceed  at  least  to  consecrate 
his  new  colleague  ?  Of  this  the  historian  says  nothing.  "  Mat- 
thias teas  numbered  with  the  eleven  Apostles."  Are  deacons  to 
be  elected — a  matter  of  great  importance,  for  it  was  a  new  in- 
stitution that  was  to  be  created — here  Peter  is  not  even  named. 
"  Then  the  tivelve  called  the  multitude  of  the  disciples  unto  them 
and  said — the  saying  pleased  the  whole  multitude — they  chose 
Stephen,  Philip — whom  they  set  before  the  Apostles — icho  laid 
their  hands  on  them."  Finally,  when  Peter,  agreeably  to  divine 
intimation,  took  it  upon  him  to  baptize  a  pagan  without  having 
referred  the  matter  to  the  Church,  it  was  not  only  his  colleagues, 
but  "  the  believers,"'  the  mere  believers,  "  contended  with  him;" 

*  "  Peter,"  says  Bossuet  on  the  Unity  (of  the  Church),  "  appears  the 
fii'st  in  all  thingd ;  the  first  to  make  a  confession  of  the  faith — tlie  first 
that  confirmed  the  faith  by  a  miracle."  llere  the  error  is  obvious. 
The  cure  of  the  lame  man  in  the  Acts,  occurs  in  the  3d  chapter,  and 
it  is  in  the  second  that  mention  is  made  of  the  miracles  wrought  by 
the  Apostles.  The  same  remark  applies  to  Bossuet's  other  assertion, 
that  l^eter  was  the  first  to  confess  the  faith.  He  was,  in  point  of  fact, 
the  first  to  say,  in  reply  to  a  question  from  the  Saviour,  "  Thou  art  the 
Christ,  the  Son  of  God;"  but  this  does  not  imply  that  he  was  the  first 
to  believe  in  the  divinity  of  liis  Master,  if,  indeed,  it  can  be  said  that 
any  of  them  believed  in  it  previous  to  Christ's  resurrection,  and  the 
sending  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 


374  HISTORY    OF    THE    COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  V. 

and  not  only  does  he  justify  himself  ^vith  the  air  of  a  man  who 
thinks  it  quite  natural  that  he  should  be  asked  to  account  for 
what  he  had  done,  but  his  discourse  contains  no  allusion  to  any 
superiority  of  any  kind.  We  could  very  well  conceive  that  Peter, 
even  on  the  weightiest  occasions,  may  have  adopted  a  very  differ- 
ent tone  from  that  which  the  popes  were  afterwards  to  assume  ; 
but  not  to  utter  a  single  word  that  could  bear  that  meaning, 
never  to  make  a  single  appeal,  or  the  slightest  allusion,  to  a  pri- 
macy with  which  he  must  have  believed  himself  to  be  invested 
by  a  formal  act  of  his  Master's  will ;  this  would  amount  to  im- 
probability, carried  to  a  higher  degree  than  had  ever  been 
reached  in  any  history. 

"Had  St.  Peter,"  says  De  Maistre,  "  a  distinct  knowledge  of 
the  extent  of  his  prerogative  ?  I  cannot  tell."  Such,  let  us  re- 
mark, is  the  pass  to  which  one  of  the  most  ardent  defenders  of 
the  Holy  See  is  reduced.  The  man  who  scatters  his  yes  and 
his  no  where  everj^body  before  him  had  hesitated.  "  I  cannot 
tell,"  says  he  1  It  is  perhaps  the  only  confession  of  ignorance 
that  his  book  contains.  What  a  confession  then  I  And  what 
must  not  have  been  the  cogency  of  the  conviction  that  wrung  it 
from  him  I  Thus  you  hear  him  say,  we  dare  not  affirm  that  the 
very  man  to  whom  it  w-as  said,  "  Thou  art  Peter,  and  upon  this 
rock  I  will  build  my  Church,"  saw,  inspired  though  he  was  by 
the  Holy  Spirit,  in  these  words  what  his  pretended  successors 
would  fain  see  in  them. 

To  historical  improbability,  let  us  now  join  that  resulting  from 
the  silence  of  the  Apostles,  comprising  that  of  St.  Peter  himself, 
in  their  writings.  St.  Paul  says  (Epistle  to  the  Galatians)  that 
he  went  up  to  Jerusalem  "  to  see  Peter,"  "  to  confer  Avith  Peter," 
a  phrase  marked  by  a  strange  simplicity,  if  it  WQxe  really  in 
order  to  receive  orders  from  the  Church's  chief — it  is  Paul  who, 
in  the  same  epistle,  when  speaking  of  another  Journey  to  Jeru- 
salem, names  Peter  after  James ;  it  is  Paul  also,  always  in  the 
same  epistle,  who  dares  to  write,  "  when  Peter  was  come  to 
Antioch,  I  withstood  him  to  the  face."  And  how  did  he  with- 
stand him  ?  As  an  inferior  who  takes  the  liberty  to  make  some 
remarks  ?  We  have  already  quoted  his  w-ords  :  he  withstood  him 
to  the  face,  "because  Peter  was  to  be  blamed."  And,  a  little 
farther  on,  "When  I  saw  that  they  (the  Jews  and  Peter)  walked 
not  uprightly,  according  to  the  truth  of  the  Gospel,  /  said  unto 
Peter  before  them  all,''  kc.  Mark  that  this  took  ^AdLce  fourteen 
years  after  the  journey  to  Jerusalem,  that  is  to  say,  at  an  epoch 
when  Christians  and  Christian  Churches  were  beginning  to  be 
seen  everywhere,  and  when  St.  Peter's  primacy,  were  it  even  in 
spite  of  himself,  ought  to  have  had  a  thousand  occasions  of  being 


fii.vr.  III.  IJC.J.     APOSTLES  SAV   NOTlllNU  OF  PETER'S  PRIMACY.       375 

overtly  exercised  ;  mark,  also,  that  the  epistle  from  which  this 
is  taken  was  itself  written  a  lonf^  time  after  the  Btay  at  Antioch, 
and,  which  is  still  more  signilicant,  was  written  from  Rome ; 
Irom  Rome  where  St.  Peter,  if  ever  he  was  there  at  all,  must 
necessarily  have  been  then  ;  firom  Rome,  in  fine,  the  Church's 
centre,  and  the  see  of  the  Church's  head.  If  then  8t.  Paul  be- 
heved  in  the  primacy  of  his  colleag-ue,  this  epistle  was  not  only 
an  act  of  rebellion  against  him,  but  a  piece  of  actual  perfidy  to- 
wards the  Galatians,  seeing  that  it  left  them  entirely  beyond  the 
pale  of  that  Roman  unity,  beyond  which,  we  are  told,  there  is 
no  salvation,  and  prevented  them  from  so  much  as  suspecting 
either  the  necessity  or  the  existence  of  any  supreme  head  of  the 
Church  other  than  Jesus  Christ. 

And  why  speak  we  of  the  Galatians  ?  Not  only  the  Gala- 
tians, but  the  Corinthians,  the  Ephesians,  the  Thessalonians,  the 
Romans  themselves,  the  faithful  of  all  countries,  in  fine,  have 
been  left  by  the  authors  of  the  epistles  in  ignorance  on  this  point. 
A¥hen  there  were  so  many  dificrent  Churches,  threatened  with 
so  many  dangers,  united  by  so  many  spiritual  ties,  but  otherwise 
so  isolated,  of  so  little  account  in  the  eyes  of  the  world,  so  lost 
in  the  immensity  of  the  empire,  is  it  possible  that  there  could 
be  men,  and  men,  too,  inspired  by  God,  that  could  have  written 
fifteen  epistles  without  telling  them,  v/ithout  reminding  them, 
at  least,  if  they  knew  it,  that  God  had  given  them  a  common 
head  I  For  it  is  a  poor  subterfuge  to  say,  as  is  sometimes  said, 
"  The  thing  was  so  universally  known  that  it  was  needless  to 
mention  it."  The  more  you  suppose  it  to  have  been  universally 
known  and  admitted — impossible  though  it  be  to  maintain  this 
in  the  face  of  the  words  and  the  conduct  of  St.  Paul — the  more 
will  it  be  absurd  to  conceive  that  St.  Paul,  or  St.  John,  or  St. 
James,  or  St.  Peter  himself,  should  never  have  made  the  slight- 
est allusion  to  it. 

Assuming  this,  it  is  clear  that  we  need  little  disquiet  our- 
selves about  what  tradition  may  teach  contrary  to  facts  so  potent 
and  so  indisputable.  Should  St.  Peter's  primacy  be  found  posi- 
tively mentioned  by  authors  of  the  second  or  of  the  first  century, 
still,  with  the  epistles  in  our  hand,  we  may  pronounce  those 
authors  mistaken. 

But  it  so  happens  that  more  than  four  centuries  had  elapsed 
before  the  words  '•  Thoic  art  Fctcr^  began  to  be  generally  in- 
terpreted in  the  present  Roman  sense.  Down  till  then,  notwith- 
standing the  visible  advances  made  by  the  idea  that  was  finally 
to  carry  all  before  it,  the  most  widely  difiused  opinion  Avas  pre- 
cisely that  which  has  been  adopted  by  the  Protestants  for  the 
explanation  of  these  M'ords.      "  On  this  stone,"  savs  Chrv'sos- 


376  HISTORY   OF  THE   COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  V 


J 


y 


\o\Vi}  "  that  is  to  say,  on  tJic  faith  of  this  confession,  I  will  build 
my  Church.  This  confession  is  that  which  the  Apostle  made  in 
reply  to  that  question  of  the  Master,  '  And  what  say  ye  that  I 
am  ?' — '  Thou  art  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  the  living  God,'  was 
St.  Peter's  answer."  "Then,"  says  St.  Ambrose,^  "the  Lord  re- 
plies  to  him  :  On  this  stone  I  will  build  my  Church,  that  is  to 
say,  on  this  confession  of  the  universal  faith  I  build  the  faithful 
that  they  may  have  life."  "  What,"  says  St.  Augustine,-^  "  is 
the  meaning  of  this  saying  of  Jesus  Christ  ?  It  is  this  :  I  will 
J   build  my  Church  on  this  faith,  on  what  has  just  been  said,  to 

^    wit,  Thou  art  the  Christ,  the  So?i  of  the  living  God.''     And 

elsewhere,"^  "  On  this  rock  which  thou  hast  confessed,  I  will 

y  build  my  Church  ;  for  the  rock  was  Christ."     "  It  was  Christ," 

-^  savs  St.  Jerome  also.-^  Christ  or  his  vicar,  we  shall  be  told. 
Yes,  it  is  thus  indeed  that  the  matter  is  arranged  at  the  present 
day,  but  it  will  ever  remain  not  the  less  true  that  these  two 
Fathers  do  not  say  so,  and  that  at  the  moment  when,  if  ever,  they 
might  have  been  expected  to  express  themselves  distinctly.  What- 
ever leaning  they,  in  common  with  the  age  in  which  they  lived, 
might  have  had  for  Roman  centralization,  they  were  still  far 
from  regarding  it  as  founded  on  a  command  emanating  from 
God  ;  the  idea  of  a  certain  preference  accorded  to  St.  Peter,  did 
not  yet  carry  along  with  it  in  their  minds  that  of  a  real,  per- 
manent, transmissible  supremacy.  Hence  those  contradictions, 
those  incoherences,  which  behoved  to  disappear  on  the  system 
being  once  regularly  established,  but  which  sufficiently  prove 
how  far  that  still  was  from  being  the  case.  Origen,  for  example, 
after  having  said  somewhere  that  the  rock  is  St.  Peter,  says  not 
the  less  at  another  place, ^  "  The  rock,  that  is,  every  disciple  of 
Christ.  Is  it  not  for  all  the  Apostles,  for  each  of  them  that  he 
has  said,  '  Thou  art  Peter,  and  upon  this  rock  I  will  build  my 
Church  ?'"  Here  then  we  have  only  in  a  more  practical  form 
the  explanation  given  by  Jerome  and  Augustine.  The  rock, 
that  is,  the  confession  of  faith  made  by  Peter,  and  every  believer 
w^ho  shall  make  the  same  confession  with  him,  may  apply  to 
himself  the  saying  of  which  he  had,  as  it  were,  the  hrst  fruits  on 
this  occasion. 

Thus,  whatever  meaning  may  be  given  to  these  words,  it  still 
remains  to  be  proved  that  it  was  Rome,  that  it  was  the  pope, 

*  Fifty-fifth  Homily  on  Matthew  xiii. 
-  On  the  2d  chapter  to  the  Ephesians. 

^  On  the  1st  Epistle  of  St.  John.  *  On  the  Gospel  of  St.  John. 

*  Commentaiy  on  St.  Matthew.  Sec  also  C}-^!  on  the  Trinity,  1.  iv. 
Hihary  on  the  Trinity,  1.  ii.  and  iv.  Basil  of  Seleucia's  Homily  on  St. 
Matthew,  ttf.  '  '•  Commentarv  on  St.  Matthew. 


Chap.  III.  ir)02.  CHRONOLOGICAL    DIFFICULTIES.  :{77 

that  Avas  excln.?ively  called  to  reap  the  Ijeuclit  oi'  them.  "VYere 
it  denioiistrated  that  JSt.  Tctcr  was  the  head  ot'the  Church,  still 
the  Roman  question,  jDioperly  so  called,  would  not  thereby  have 
been  the  more  advanced,  or  made  the  clearer. 

First  of  all,  how  shall  we  dispose  of  chronological  difficulties  ? 
We  do  not  insist  that  the  quarter  of  a  century  assigned  by  tradi- 
tion to  the  episcopate  of  St.  Peter  shall  be  proved  to  us  to  a  day, 
to  a  year,  to  about  two  years  ;  but,  indeed,  make  the  calculation 
in  what  manner  you  please,  it  is  not  two,  or  four,  or  ten  years 
that  are  wanting  ;  one  knows  not  Avhere  to  find  a  single  year 
that  could  have  seen  that  Apostle  at  the  head  of  the  faithful  in 
Rome.  Tradition  places  his  death,  as  well  as  that  of  St  Paul, 
in  the  year  66.  Now,  the  book  of  the  Acts  shews  him  to  have 
been  at  Jerusalem,  at  Ca3sarea,  at  Antioch,  until  the  year  51  or 
52.  Thus,  already  we  have  but  fourteen  or  fifteen  years  left 
over.  AYere  these  fourteen  or  fifteen  years  passed  in  Rome  ? 
In  the  year  57  or  58  St.  Paul  writes  the  epistle  to  the  Romans, 
ihe  longest  of  his  epistles,  and  not  a  remembrance,  not  an  allu- 
sion, not  a  word  is  there  for  the  alleged  founder  and  head  of  the 
Church  to  which  he  writes.  Nay  more,  he  who  at  the  close  of  ^^ 
his  letters  salutes  ordinarily  no  more  than  five  or  six  persons, 
and  often  not  so  many,  on  this  occasion  salutes  twenty-seven. 
And  Peter  is  not  among  them.  In  the  year  62  or  63,  he  writes 
from  Rome  to  the  churches  of  Philippi,  Ephesus,  and  Colosse  ; 
he  gives  them  a  multiplicity  of  details  about  what  he  has  seen 
and  heard,  yet  not  a  word  about  Peter.  In  66,  the  very  year 
of  his  death,  again  he  whites  from  Rome  to  Timothy.  He  tells 
him  his  position,  his  isolation,  his  suflbrings.  "  All  men  for- 
sook me,"  says  he,  "  except  Onesiphorus."  "Where,  then,  was 
Peter  ? 

Before  these  arguments  of  facts,  of  figures,  what  can  tradition 
avail,  even  supposing  it  to  be  as  clear  and  constant  as  we  have 
seen  that  it  is  vague  and  variable  ?  Is  it  not  a  problem  to  ex- 
plain how  there  could  have  arisen,  unless  from  a  total  forgetful- 
ness  of  the  New  Testament,  the  idea  of  Peter's  episcopacy  at 
Rome  ?  Is  it  not  also  a  problem,  and  a  very  sad  problem  withal, 
to  conceive  how  there  should  be  men  who  know  these  details  as 
well  as  we,  and  w^ho  not  the  less  persist  in  placing  at  the  foun- 
dation of  Roman  Catholic  unity,  this  old  and  eternal  lie  which 
they  are  sensible  falls  to  dust  hi  their  hands  ? 

And  now,  that  we  may  not  altogether  pass  over  a  point  which 
the  preceding  remarks,  nevertheless,  would  authorize  our  setting 
aside,  is  tradition,  as  we  have  expressed  it,  at  least  clear  and 
constant  ? 

We  might  take  one  by  one  all  the  passages  in  the  Fathers 


^ 


378  HISTORY  OF  THE   COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  V. 

which  are  adduced  in  favour  of  the  popedom,  and  we  might 
shew  that  there  is  not  one  of  them  positive  enough  to  be  of  any- 
serious  avail  in  a  question  where  the  matter  at  issue  is  to  prove 
at  once  the  law  and  the  fact.  Let  a  single  passage  be  pointed 
out  to  us,  not  where  something  is  vaguely  said  about  the  privi- 
leges of  St.  Peter,  of  the  rights  of  the  bishop  of  Rome,  but  where 
it  is  positively  said — 

That  St.  Peter  was  the  supreme  head  of  the  Church  ; 

That  the  other  Apostles  were  subject  to  him ; 

That  all  his  rights  have  passed  to  his  successors ; 

That  the  pope  is  thus  the  sole  legitimate  source  of  all  the 
spiritual  powers  exercised  in  the  Church  ; 

And  then,  then  only  will  the  subject  be  worth  discussing. 
Are  we  asking  too  much  ?  The  antiquity  of  this  fact,  now  held 
as  incontrovertible  in  all  the  pages  of  all  the  Roman  books  that 
have  been  written  for  the  last  thousand  years,  so  impossible  is  it 
from  the  moment  of  its  being  admitted,  not  to  speak  of  it  at 
ev^ery  turn — the  antiquity  of  this  fact  some  would  fain  we  should 
consider  as  proved  by  a  ifew  lines  of  a  Father  who,  in  works  fill- 
ing ten  volumes,  shall  have  two  or  three  times  said  something 
approaching  it  I  But  we  have  only  to  open  those  Fathers  to  find 
passages  in  which  it  is  utterly  inconceivable  that  they  should 
not  have  spoken  of  the  pope,  had  they  believed  in  him ;  and  for 
one  w^ord  from  which  people  hazard  the  inference  that  they  be- 
lieved in  him,  we  should  find  a  hundred  which  we  might  defy  a 
Roman  Catholic  to  be  able  to  v/rite  at  the  present  day  without 
ceasing  to  be  regarded  as  a  Roman  Catholic. 

So  much  for  the  Fathers  of  the  third  and  the  fourth  centuries  ; 
what  then  may  we  expect  to  find  in  those  of  the  second  and  the 
first  ?  In  the  second,  we  have  Irenaius.  He  admits,  no  doubt, 
a  journey  made  by  Peter  to  Rome,  a  journey  which  might  in 
fact  have  taken  place,  although  it  is  far  from  likely,  in  the  course 
of  one  of  those  years  in  which  we  cannot  precisely  determine 
where  that  Apostle  was  ;  he  makes  him  concur  with  St.  Paul 
in  the  founding  of  the  Church  of  that  city  ;  but  it  is  neither  he 
nor  St.  Paul,  it  is  Linus,  the  second  bishop  of  Rome,  according 
to  present  tradition,  whom  he  names  as  having  been  the  first. 
It  is  to  Linus  also  that  the  Ajwstolic  co7istitutions^  give  this 
title,  and  what  is  still  more  convincing,  they  represent  him  as 
having  been  installed  by  St.  Paul.  In  the  first  century  we  find 
Clemens  Romanus,  the  third  or  the  fourth  of  the  popes.^     In 

»  Book  vii.  46. 

'  The  Apostolic  Constitutions  were  long  attributed  to  him.  It  is  now 
admitted  that  they  belong  to  the  4th  centur}-,  with  posterior  intercala- 
tions, which  renders  the  omission  of  St.  Pe'tei-'s  pontificate  still  more 
striking. 


Chap.  111.  l^OJ.     DIFFICULTIES  IN  THE  ROMAN   POINT  OF  VIEW.     379 

Jiis  epi.slle  to  the  Coriutliian.s  he  speaks  of  St.  Peter  as  having 
died  111  llio  west,  but  he  does  not  say  that  it  was  at  Rome  ;  an 
omission  ahogether  inexphcable,  had  it  been  the  general  opinion 
that  he  died  there.  But  does  he  not  speak  of  him  at  least  as 
having  been  bi.shop  of  Rome  ?  No.  As  supreme  head  of  the 
Church  ?  No.  Does  he,  the  bishop  of  Rome,  represent  himself 
as  his  successor  ?  No.  He  puts  at  the  head  of  his  letter,  "  The 
Church  of  God  which  is  at  Rome  to  the  Church  of  God  which 
is  at  Corinth."  Like  St.  Paul,  he  confounds  bishaj)  and  2)/Tsb'f/- 
ter ;  he  puts  the  episcojd  in  the  first  rank  and  the  deacons  in 
the  second.  A  strange  pope  indeed  I  Nevertheless,  this  is  the 
very  epistle  which,  as  we  have  said,  was  very  nearly  inserted 
afterwards  in  the  New  Testament.  What  would  the  popes  have 
made  of  it  ?  Alas  I  they  would  have  done  the  same  with  it  as 
they  have  done  with  those  of  St.  Paul  and  St.  Peter.  Not  the  less 
would  they  have  been  popes  ;  not  the  less  haughtily  would  they 
have  trumpeted  the  primacy,  the  popedom  of  St.  Peter,  and  all 
the  consequences  they  have  drawn  from  it.  Once  engaged  in  a 
false  course,  of  what  moment  is  a  little  more  or  a  little  less  ? 

It  was  not  this,  then,  to  return  to  our  council,  that  proved  the 
worst  cause  of  embarrassment  to  the  doctors  of  Trent.  Never 
departing  from  the  Roman  Catholic  point  of  view,  they  found  no 
difficulty  in  keeping  themselves  easy  with  respect  to  the  Prot- 
estant objections,  even  though,  like  many  of  those  we  have 
stated,  they  had  all  the  eloquence  of  figures.  Other  difficulties, 
all  the  more  untoward,  in  that  there  was  nothing  Protestant  about 
them,  risked  intruding  themselves  into  the  discussion. 

See,  then,  the  pope,  head  of  the  Church,  exclusive  source  of 
all  spiritual  powers,  &c.  If  such  he  be  at  the  present  day,  he 
must  necessarily  have  been  so,  in  point  of  lawful  title  at  least, 
since  immediately  after  the  death  of  Jesus  Christ.  Looking 
back  to  that  period,  what  are  we  to  make  of  the  other  Apostles  ? 

Let  us  accept,  as  fully  as  you  please,  the  pre-eminence  of 
Peter  ;  still  you  cannot  get  rid  of  two  facts  which  obstinately 
refuse  to  bend  to  the  Roman  system — one,  that  the  colleagues  of 
Peter  received  from  Jesus  Christ,  like  him  and  at  the  same  time 
with  him,  their  authority  and  their  commission  ;  the  other,  that 
they  acted  constantly,  in  the  sequel,  as  persons  entirely  free  to 
transmit  that  authority  and  commission  from  tliemselves  to 
whomsoever  they  might  deem  fit.  Paul  laid  his  hands  on 
Timothy ;  Timothy  laid  his  hands  on  a  number  of  pastors,  of 
bishops,  to  adopt  the  language  of  Rome  ;  and  in  all  the  instruc- 
tions given  by  Paul  on  that  subject  there  docs  not  appear  to 
have  been  any  question  about  establishing,  or  maintaining,  any 
bond  wliatever  between  those  pastors  and  a  supreme  head. 


380  HISTORY  OF  THE   COUNCIL  OF   TRENT.  Book  V. 

Now,  in  whatever  manner  the  relevancy  of  these  two  facts 
may  be  sought  to  be  lessened,  they  have  a  mighty  bearing  on  the 
point  at  issue.  If  there  could  exist,  it  matters  not  when,  a  sin- 
gle generation  of  legitimate  pastors  independent  of  St.  Peter,  the 
E-oman  chain  is  broken.  Although  it  should  be  successfully 
proved  that  in  the  next  following  generation,  Peter,  or  his  suc- 
cessor, had  become  the  centre,  still  we  should  be  authorized  to 
see  in  him  only  a  head  in  fact,  not  in  right,  and  to  view  the 
popedom  only  as  an  institution  more  or  less  useful  in  regard 
to  miity,  not  as  an  institution  necessary  for  the  transmission  of 
powers.  Mark  what  Luther  said  at  an  epoch  when  he  still  pro- 
claimed, as  loudly  as  any,  the  necessity  of  there  being  a  supreme 
head  of  the  Church — "  The  bishop  of  Rome  is  above  all  by  his 
dignity.  To  him  we  must  address  ourselves  in  all  cases  of  diffi- 
culty. Yet  I  admit  that  I  knoio  not  lioio  I  coidd  defend 
against  the  Greeks  the  supremacy  that  1  concede  to  him."^ 

But  Luther,  perhaps,  without  being  aware  of  it,  was  already 
detached  from  that  unity  which  he  still  preached,  and  this  may 
have  magnified  to  his  eyes  the  objections  to  it.  Let  us  turn, 
then,  from  the  man  of  the  sixteenth  to  the  man  of  the  third  cen- 
tury, Origen — "  If  you  believe  that  God  has  built  his  Chr.-.ch  on 
.     Peter,  and  on  Peter  alone,  what  will  you  make  of  John,  the  son 

^  of  thunder,  and  of  each  of  the  other  ten  Apostles  ?  AYas  it  not 
for  the  Apostles,  for  each  of  them,  that  it  was  said,  '  The  gates 
of  hell  shall  not  prevail  against  it ;'  and  again — '  Upon  this 
rock  I  will  build  my  Church  ?'  "-  It  is  curious  that  the  iloman 
Church  forces  us  to  go  to  the  Fathers  to  confront  her  out  of  them 
more  surely,  with  objections  which  we  should  find  quite  as  well 
in  the  Apostles  themselves.  Origen's  idea  is  no  other  than  that 
of  St.  Paul,  when  writing  to  the  Ephesians — "  Ye  are  built  tipmi 
the  foundation  of  the  Apostles  and  Prophets."  There  is  no- 
thing even  in  the  Apocalypse,  where  we  do  not  approve  in  gen- 
ral  of  dogmas  being  looked  for,  that  does  not  here  come  to  our 
support.  AYhat  are  we  to  conclude  respecting  those  "  twelve 
foundations,  and  in  them  the  names  of  the  twelve  Apostles  of 
the  Lamb  ?"  How  can  we  imagine  that  this  could  have  been 
written,  even  in  the  allegory,  by  one  who  believed  in  that  high 
primacy  of"  one  of  the  twelve  ? 

We  have  said  accordingly  :  let  there  have  been  but  a  single 
generation  of  bishops,  legitimate,  though  independent  of  St.  Pe- 
ter, and  the  chain  is  broken.     But  have  we  but  one  generation 
to  appeal  to  ?     Who  will  shew  us  in  the  second,  or  in  the  third 
,      century,  a  single  trace  of  the  intervention  of  the  pope  in  the  or- 

^       dination  of  bishops  ?     What  astonishment,  what  profound  stupe- 
*  Letter  to  Dungersheim,  1519.         -  Commentary  on  St.  Matthe^v. 


Chap.  III.  1562.     CO-EXISTENCE  OF  PATRIARCHS  AND  THE  POPE.      381 

faction,  would  have  seized  the  believers  of  Jerusalem,  Ephesus, 
and  Antioch,  had  any  one  bethought  himself  of  telling  them  at 
that  epoch  that  their  bishops  were  usurpers  and  intruders,  seeing 
that  they  had  not  derived  their  powers  from  Rome  I  Four  or 
five  centuries  later,  in  the  west,  in  Italy  itself,  amid  all  those 
waves  which  were  impelled  by  the  same  wind  towards  Rome, 
Churches  still  were  found  that,  like  islands,  opposed  that  im- 
mense current.  It  is  only  in  the  tenth  century  that  we  find 
that  of  Milan  submit  definitively  to  the  papal  supremacy.  Less 
than  one  hundred  years  before  that,  Roboald,  bishop  of  Aloa, 
when  consulted  on  the  subject  of  the  archbishop,  replied  that  Jte 
ivoidd  rather  Imve  his  nose  sjjlit  tip  to  Ids  eycs^  than  advise 
him  to  submit. 

The  Roman  Church  has  even  been  obliged  to  make  some  con- 
cessions in  this  respect,  and  little  as  the  consequences  have  been 
pressed,  they  would  lead  far  enough.  It  gives  the  title  of  patri- 
archs, with  certain  special  honours,  to  the  bishops  who  occupy, 
or  are  understood  to  occujiy,  the  seats  of  St.  Peter's  colleagues. 
We  must  refer  the  reader  to  Hurter^  for  the  long  tentative  etibrts 
by  which  Romanists  have  come  at  length  to  explain,  for  better 
or  worse,  by  evading  what  seemed  too  stubborn  to  bend  to  their 
purposes,  the  co-existence  of  patriachs  and  the  pope,  of  a  supreme 
head  and  of  primitively  independent  heads,  and  whose  position 
cannot,  in  point  of  right,  have  undergone  any  change.  In  the 
actual  state  of  things,  as  the  patriarchs  are  all  either  beyond  the 
paie  of  the  Roman  Church,  or  mere  archbishops  appointed  by 
the  pope,  this  system  presents  no  serious  inconveniences  to  the 
central  authority  ;  all  that  it  costs  is  the  putting  upon  the  altar, 
when  the  pope  officiates  pontifically,  a  lofty  tiara  surrounded  by 
five  mitres,  as  emblematical  of  the  popedom  amid  the  patri- 
archates. But  if,  without  keeping  ourselves  to  things  as  they 
are,  we  were  to  ask  ourselves  what  they  might  be,  to  what  re- 
sults might  we  not  come  ?  That  each  of  the  Apostles  had  been 
established  in  a  town  ;  that  that  town  had  been  governed  ever 
since  by  an  uninterrupted  succession  of  bishops,  successors  of  the 
first — so  that  we  should  have  eleven  patriarchs,  eleven  bishops 
warranted  to  beheve  themselves  as  independent  of  the  bishop  of 
Rome  as  the  eleven  Apostles  were  of  Peter  ;  eleven  bishops,  con- 
sequently, entitled  to  ordain  other  bishops,  to  establish  bishop- 
ricks,  to  exercise,  in  fine,  each  in  his  own  sphere,  the  plentitude 

^  Quod  prius  sustineret  nasum  suum  scindi  usque  ad  oculos.  Ughelli, 
Italia  sacra. 

^  Institutions  of  the  Cliurch,  ch.  v.  The  veiy  name  of  pope,  long 
given  to  a  certain  number  of  bishops,  became  official  only  under  Leo  I., 
and  exclusive  under  Gregory  VII.  towards  the  year  1080. 


382  HISTORY   OF  THE   COUNCIL   OF   TRENT  Book  V. 

of  the  present  papal  power.  Here,  then,  ■we  have  the  pope  no 
more  than  primus  inter  j^cl^'cs,  and  if  other  dioceses  should  at 
all  comprise,  as  might  also  have  happened,  a  country  of  some 
extent — one  France,  another  Spain,  another  Germany,  and  so 
on — Avhat  would  there  have  remained  for  the  diocese  of  St. 
Peter  ? 

All  this  is  not  the  case,  but  all  this  is  possible,  and  when  we 
come  to  speak  of  right,  possibiUty  suffices.  If  the  bishop  of 
Rome  could  once  have  risked  being,  and  remaining,  merely  the 
bishop  of  Rome  or  of  Italy,  his  quality  of  universal  bishop  is  a 
bare  fact  which  does  not  prove  the  right.  The  Church,  let  us 
assume,  may  have  had  the  power,  if  she  had  the  will,  to  concede 
to  him  a  certain  universal  jurisdiction  ;  but  in  point  of  divine 
right,  he  is  only  a  bishop,  or  at  the  most  only  a  patriarch  like 
another. 

We  see  the  patriarchal  see  of  Constantinople,  erected  so  long 
after  the  other  three, ^  obtain  almost  immediately  the  pre-emi- 
nence, and  this,  says  the  Roman  Catechism,  because  Constan- 
tinople became  the  seat  of  the  empire.  That  of  Jerusalem,  on 
the  contrary,  which  might  have  preferred  so  many  claims  to  be 
considered  as  the  first,  was  reputed  the  fourth.  AYhy  ?  Because 
Jerusalem  was,  politically,  the  least  considerable  of  the  four  cities. 
Thus  Rome  herself  makes  the  admission  ;  it  was  for  reasons  pure- 
ly human  that  the  second  capital  of  the  empire  saw  her  bishop 
become  the  second  of  the  Christian  world.  The  same  motives, 
therefore,  might  have  sufficed  for  raising  to  the  first  rank  that  of 
the  first  capital,  and  the  conquest  of  the  Roman  empire  by  the 
popes  no  better  proved  their  right  to  possess  it  than  the  forma- 
tion itself  of  that  empire  proved  the  right  of  the  ancient  Romans 
to  be  the  masters  of  the  world.  A  conquest  made  in  what  man- 
ner you  please,  is  but  a  fact.  The  question  of  right  remains  the 
same  after  as  before.  It  is  'for  the  same  reason  that  we  leave 
untouched,  and  that  wdthout  any  injustice,  the  services  which 
the  popedom  may  have  rendered  to  Christianity  and  to  Europe. 
Even  were  there  no  shade  to  mar  the  picture  that  is  presented 
to  us,  the  theological  and  the  moral  question  is  not  thereby  ad- 
vanced. Every  despotism  has  necessarily  some  happy  results ; 
peace,  order,  progress  in  the  arts  and  literature,  have  not,  within 
certain  hmits,  a  surer  basis  to  rest  upon.  Never  was  France 
more  peaceable  internally  than  under  the  reign  of  the  man  who 
had  said — "  The  state,  that  is  myself"  Shall  this  be  held  a 
proof  that  he  had  the  logical  right  to  say  so?  "  The  Church, 
that  is  myself,"  said  the  popedom.  The  benefits  it  has  con- 
ferred, Avere  they  incontestable,  would  not,  therefore,  prove  that 
*  Alexandria,  Antioch,  and  JeruGalem. 


Chap.  III.  150;!.      I'UINCIPLES  BROUGHT  OUT  IN  THE  DISCUSSION.     383 

it  was  ill  the  right,  and  it  is  only  by  a  sophism  that  the  discus- 
sion can  in  our  days  be  transferred  to  that  ground.^ 

Such  was,  in  fact,  the  conclusion  at  which,  in  the  discussions 
of  the  council,  all  those  divines  or  prelates  arrived  who  sought 
for  reasons  rather  than  words,  and  were  bold  enough  to  utter 
them  Avhen  found.  We  could  wish  that  the  leading  speeches 
delivered  on  this  occasion  were  in  the  hands  of  every  honest  and 
reflective  Roman  Catholic  ;  we  could  hand  them  over  to  him 
with  the  utmost  confidence,  without  altering  a  word,  and  add- 
ing nothing  but  an  invitation  to  deduce  the  consequences  that 
flow  from  them.  Not  that  they  do  not  further  involve  more 
than  one  principle  which  Ave  should  have  to  contest,  seeing  that 
it  was  in  the  interests  of  the  bishops,  not  of  religious  liberty,  that 
the  speakers  talked  of  abasing  the  pope ;  but,  putting  all  things 
together,  we  should  not  let  these  much  disquiet  us.  The  pope 
once  given  up,  what  would  become  of  the  rest  ?  and  notwith- 
standing all  their  protestations  to  the  contrary,  those  certainly 
did  give  him  up,  who,  at  Trent,  made  the  speeches  of  which  our 
objections  are  almost  an  analysis  and  an  abstract. 

With  regard  to  the  harsh  truths  which  came  out  in  the  course 
of  this  debate,  it  would  be  curious  to  confront  them  with  the  as- 
sertions of  the  popes,  when,  sioeaking  without  control,  they  trace 
the  bold  picture  of  their  rights.  We  should  not  go  in  search  of 
the  raving  tirades  of  a  Gregory  YIL,  a  Boniface  YllL,  a  Paul  IV., 
or  a  Sixtus  V.  ;  the  most  moderate  bulls  would  suffice  for  our 
purjDose.  "  Let  all  remember,"  it  is  said  in  the  Encyclical  Let- 
ter of  1832,  "that  it  is  to  the  Roman  pontifi^  that  there  has 
been  given  by  Jesus  Christ  the  full  power  of  feeding,  directing, 
and  governing  the  Church,  as  has  been  declared  by  the  Fathers 
of  the  council  of  Florence."  The  Fathers  of  Florence  !  Why, 
then,  not  those  of  Trent,  whom  you  are  so  fond  of  quoting,  and 

^  De  Maistre  indirectl}'  admits  this.  "  The  French,"  says  he,  "  have 
had,  thanks  to  Charlemagne,  the  honoiu' of  constituting,  humanly  speak- 
ing, the  Catholic  Church  in  the  world,  by  raising  its  head  to  a  rank — 
without  which  he  would  have  been  no  better  than  a  patriarch  of  Con- 
stantinople, the  pitiable  sport  of  Christian  sultans."  Is  not  this  saying 
clearly  enough,  that  if  the  popes  had  not  become  kings  of  Rome,  the 
sovereigns  would  not  have  seen  in  them  anything  more  tlian  patriarchs? 
Is  not  this  tantamount  to  saying  a  little  less  clearly,  that  previous  to 
that,  they  were  nothing  else?  Let  us  agree  with  him  al.=o  in  what  he 
says  of  Charlemagne,  for  we  are  aware  there  are  some  who  will  abso- 
lutely have  it  that  Rome  was  given  to  the  popes  by  Constantine,  the 
first  of  the  Christian  emperors.  Although  Ariosto  sets  down  this  do- 
nation as  among  the  number  of  falsehoods  which  Astolphe  found  in  the 
moon,  witli  tlie  prayers  of  the  wicked,  lovers'  sighs,  <tc. — so  many  his- 
torical lies  are  brought  into  credit  again  that  we  must  not  be  too  san- 
guine in  thinking  that  we  have  done  with  them  in  this  case. 


S84  HISTORY   OF   THE   COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  V. 

who,  in  fact,  are  quoted  some  lines  farther  on,  upon  the  question 
of  the  infallibility  of  the  Church  ?  Wh3^  because  at  Florence, 
under  the  pope's  dictation,  the  matter  had  passed  without  dis- 
cussion ;  whereas,  at  Trent,  where  discussion  was  ventured  upon, 
the  popedom  was  quite  happy  at  the  members  being  so  compla- 
cent as  to  say  nothing  about  it  at  all.  Yes,  Roman  Catholics, 
not  a  word  I  The  very  man  who  is  pointed  out  to  you  as  at 
the  summit  of  the  hierarchy,  the  Council  of  Trent,  in  the  course 
of  a  long  decree  on  the  hierarchy,  has  not  found  the  opportunity 
of  naming.  You  might  read  that  decree  from  beginning  to  end 
without  ever  suspecting  that  there  was  a  pope  in  the  world. 
Of  the  eight  canons  that  follow,  you  might  read  seven  without 
any  more  suspicion  on  the  subject ;  then,  quite  at  the  end,  you 
would  find  one  condemning  the  opinion  that  bishops  named  by 
the  pope  are  not  legitimate  bishops  ;  but  even  there  it  is  not  said 
that  they  are  the  only  legitimate  bishops. 

How  are  we  to  reconcile  this  excessive  moderation  with  the 
warmth  of  indignation  which  seized  the  assembly  one  day  be- 
cause a  Spanish  bishop,  Avosmediano,  had  advanced  that  the 
intervention  ol"  the  pope  in  the  institution  of  bishops  is  not  abso- 
lutely necessary  ?  "  Some  prelates,"  says  Pallavicini,^  "  with 
an  imprudent  or  affected  zeal,  exclaimed,  '  Turn  him  out  I'  Oth- 
ers went  so  far  as  to  exclaim.  Anathema  I  Like  insults  resounded 
on  all  sides ;  others  again  tried  to  prevent  his  being  heard  by 
shuffling  with  their  feet  or  hissing."  Had  he  had  less  reason  on 
his  side,  would  there  have  been  such  a  noise  ?  He  would  have 
done  better  indeed,  to  say  the  truth,  not  to  have  stated  that  the 
Archbishop  of  Saltzburg  named  and  instituted  his  four  suffra- 
gans, for  one  could  reply  that  it  was  in  virtue  of  a  concession  on 
the  part  of  the  pope  ;  but  what  answer  could  be  made  to  all  he 
urged  before  he  had  referred  to  that  ?  He  had  said  that  the 
Chrysostoms,  the  Augustines,  the  Ambroses,  had  not  been  insti- 
tuted by  the  pope  ;  he  had  said  that  the  canons  of  Nice,  in 
regulating  what  related  to  the  institution  of  bishops,  make  no 
mention  of  the  pope.  If  this  was  true,  why  make  a  tumult  ? 
If  false,  why  not  decree  the  contrary  ? 

But  Avosmediano  was  not  alone.  Guerrero,  Archbishop  of 
Grenada,  declared  that  all  bishops,  including  the  pope,  are 
equal  and  brethren,  and  that  the  sole  veritable  inequality  exist- 
ing among  them  is  an  inequality  of  jurisdiction,  an  ecclesiastical 
and  human  inequality.  In  support  of  this  view  he  quoted 
a  large  enough  number  of  the  writings  of  the  first  ages  of  tho 
Church,  where  not  only  do  popes  give  to  mere  bishops  the  name 
of  brethren^  which  might,  strictly  speaking,  be  from  pohteness 

*  Book  xix.  ch.  v. 


Chap.  111.  IjCQ.     ARClIIllSIIOP   OF   GRENADA'S   TAUNTS.  S85 

only,  but  wlicre  bishops  thcmselve.s  atldrcr^sed  the  bishop  of 
Rome  as  tlieir  brother  and  colleague.  He  shewed  that  even  at 
the  epoch  when  the  pope  began  to  be  generally  recognised  as 
head  of  the  Church,  the  bishops  still  spoke  to  him  only  as  an  ad- 
ministrative and  hierarchical  head,  not  at  all  as  a  man  from 
whom  they  could  have  believed  that  they  held  their  authority  ; 
witness  Augustine,  who  in  his  epistles  treats  Popes  Innocent  I. 
and  Boniface  I.^  as  colleagues  ;  witness  Jerome  also,  writing  to 
Evagrius,  that  whatever  be  the  place  where  a  man  is  a  bishop, 
whether  at  Rome  or  at  Eugubium,  at  Constantinople  or  at 
Rhegium,  each  bishop  has  the  same  merit  and  tlie  same  priest- 
hood, and  all  are  successors  of  the  Apostles.  The  archbishop 
made  those  especially  the  objects  of  his  raillery  who  had  said 
that  no  doubt  the  Apostles  had  been  made  bishops  by  Jesus 
Christ,  but  that  Peter  alone  had  had  the  right  bestowed  on  him 
of  making  others  ;  he  asked  them  if  they  had  never  then  read 
the  book  of  the  Acts.  He  made  very  merry  also  with  those  who 
alleged  that  the  Apostles,  before  setting  themselves  to  the  work 
of  the  ministry,  had  had  themselves  ordained  bishops  by  their 
colleague  ;  which,  nevertheless,  is  the  only  explanation  whereby 
to  escape  from  the  alternative  of  having  either  twelve  popes  or 
none.  He  adverted,  in  fine,  to  the  famous  letter  of  Pope  Greg- 
ory I.,  to  John,  bishop  of  Constantinople,  who  allected  the  title 
of  universal  bishop,  "Have  you  come  to  this,"  wrote  that  pope 
to  him,  "  that,  despising  your  brethren,  you  desire  to  be  called 
the  only  bishop  I"  "  Let  your  holiness  acknowledge,"  he  went 
on  to  say,  "  how  you  puii'  yourself  up  with  pride  when  you  af- 
fect being  called  by  a  name  which  no  one  ever  pretended  to  who 
was  truly  holy.  No  doubt,  as  your  fraternity  knows,  the  pon- 
tifls  of  this  apostolical  see  which  I  fill,  have  received  as  a  mark 
of  honour,  from  the  venerable  council  of  Chalcedon,  the  title  of 
universal  bishops.  And  yet  not  one  of  them  wished  to  be  called 
by  that  name  ;  none  of  them  took  to  himself  that  rash  qualifica- 
tion, for  fear  lest,  should  he  arrogate  to  himself  in  the  episcopal 

^  Hoc  etiam  fratrl  et  consacerdoti  nostro  Bonifacio,  vel  aliis  earum 
partium  epi.scopis,  pro  confirmando  isto  canone,  innotescat.  (Council 
of  Cai'thage,  419.)  This  passage  has  often  been  adduced  in  favour  of 
the  popedom ;  it  only  bears  more  powerfully  against  it.  Are  \\c  lold 
that  the  Carthaginian  Fathers  here  recognise  the  primacy  of  the  popef 
True,  but  in  this  they  call  him  brother  and  colleague,  •which  absolutely 
excludes  the  idea  of  a  primacy  such  as  Eomanists  would  have  had  it  to 
be  since.  They  ask  from  him  the  confirmation  of  their  canons,  it  is 
added.  By  no  means,  but  of  one  of  their  canons,  the  forty-seventh, 
where  the"  question  relates  to  the  apocry]>hal  books.  (See  above, 
b.  ii.)  In  fine,  is  it  addressed  to  him  alone?  Xo.  It  is  not  even  to 
him  and  some  other  bis^hops,  but  to  him  or  to  some  others. 

R 


386  HISTORY   OF  THE    COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  V, 

dignity  the  glory  of  being  unique,  he  might  seem  to  refuse  it 
to  all  his  brethren.'"  1  There  is  no  end  to  the  conclusions  to  be 
drawn  from  this  curious  piece.  Conclusions  from  the  words  :  it 
is  a  pope  who  uses  the  expression  your  holiness  in  addressing  a 
bishop  ;  it  is  a  pope  who  says  to  him,  "  despising  thy  brethren^' 
a  proof  of  the  equality  of  bishops,  including  that  of  Rome,  for  it 
is  clear  that  if  any  one  insults  you,  and  you  complain  to  him 
that  he  has  despised  his  brethrc7i,  you  do  not  look  on  yourself 
as  essentially  superior  to  him.  Conclusions  from  the  facts  : 
when  was  it  that  the  title  in  question  was  given  to  the  popes  ? 
At  the  council  of  Chalcedon,  in  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century. 
How  was  it  given  to  them  ?  as  a  matter  of  right  ?  No  ;  as  a 
mark  of  honour.  Did  they  accept  it  ?  No  one,  down  to  Greg- 
ory L,  that  is,  doM'n  to  the  close  of  the  sixth  century,  would  con- 
sent to  take  it.  And  why  ?  Because  it  was  a  rash  qualifica- 
tion. Accordingly,  it  was  not  only  in  its  literal  signification,  but 
even  as  an  honorific  formula  that  it  was  rejected  by  Gregory  1. 
If  he  blames  Bishop  John,  it  is  not  for  having  taken  it  away 
from  him.  Bishop  of  E.ome  though  he  was,  but  for  reasons  drawn 
from  the  nature  itself  of  that  title.  Thus,  whatever  the  preten- 
sions of  the  See  of  Rome  were  even  at  that  early  epoch,  it  is 
evident  that  the  man  that  could  have  traced  those  lines,  con- 
sidered himself  as  neither  universal  bishop,  nor  as  the  source  of 
the  authority  of  the  bishops. 

^  Ad  hoc  perductus  es  ut,  despectis  fratribus,  episeopus  appetas  solus 
vocari.  A'estra  autem  Banctitas  agnoscat  quantum  apud  se  tumeat, 
qure  illo  nomine  vocari  appetit,  quo  vocari  nullus  prsesumpsit  qui  ve- 
raeiter  sanctus  fuit.  Isumquid  non,  sicut  vestra  fraternitas  novit,  per 
venerandum  Chaleedonense  concilium  hujus  apostolicse  sedis  antistites 
universales,  oblato  honore,  vocati  sunt.  Sed  tamen  nullus  unquam  tali 
vocabulo  appellari  voluit,  nullus  sibi  hoc  teraerarium  nomen  arripuit, 
ne  si  sibi  in  pontificatiis  gradu  gloriam  singularitatis  arriperet,  hanc 
omnibus  fratribus  denegasse  yideretur. 


CHAPTER    lY. 

(1562.) 

THE    POPE     EVERYTHING    OR    NOTHING.        ULTRAMONTANISM     AND 

GALLICANISM. 

The  pope  is  necessarily  all,  or  nothing — Pangs  of  the  Roman  party — 
The  vote  is  taken  but  the  discussion  continues — It  comes  upon  the 
ground  of  the  authority  of  the  council — The  perilous  position  of  things 
becomes  more  and  more  evident — All  the  objections  reach  farther 
than  is  thought  desirable  by  those  even  who  make  them — The  cause 
is  committed  to  Lainez — His  speech — The  Church  is  essentially  sub- 
ject— It  was  to  Peter  alone  that  it  was  said,  "Feed  my  sheep"' — Ab- 
solute ultramontanism — A  Roman  Catholic  has  logically  no  reply  to 
make — Irritation  increases — Complaints  of  the  bishop  of  Paris — The 
French  of  that  time,  and  those  of  the  present  day. 

Such  then  were  the  memorials  of  the  past  which  those  who 
desired  to  have  the  superiority  of  bishops  to  priests  declared  to 
be  of  divine  right,  were  not  afraid  to  evoke  in  the  midst  of  the 
council.  We  have  said  already,  that  this  opinion  in  itself  was 
not  displeasing  to  the  ultramontanists.  They  dreaded  it  only  in 
view  of  the  consequences  that  flowed  from  it,  and  the  arguments 
to  which  recourse  was  had  might  suffice  to  shew  them  its  full 
bearing.  Farther  doubt  was  impossible  ;  to  arm  the  episcopate 
with  the  divine  right  as  respected  mere  priests,  would  be  to  arm 
them  with  it  as  respected  the  pope. 

There  was  kept,  therefore,  perpetually  suspended,  like  a  sword 
above  the  assembly,  this  alarming  consequence,  which  the  Span- 
iards themselves,  no  more  than  the  Gallicans,  proposed  to  de- 
duce in  all  its  rigour,  but  at  which  they,  like  the  others,  would 
have  shuddered  had  they  better  understood  the  results  to  which 
it  might  lead.  Logically  there  is  no  middle  point ;  the  pope  is 
everything,^  or  nothing ;  the  keystone  of  the  arch,  or  a  stone 
which  has  no  more  importance  of  itself  than  any  other  ;  the  sole 
universal  bishop,  or  a  mere  bishop  accidentally  elevated  to  the 
presidence  of  the  episcopal  body,  and  whom  the  Church  might 
either  replace  by  another,  or  reduce  to  the  common  level  with- 
out even  replacing  him.  However  great  the  danger  might  be, 
the  legates  and  their  adherents,  who  saw  it  best,  had  not  even 
'   ""Without  the  pope  there  is  no  Christianity." — De  M.mstre. 


388  HISTORY    OF  THE    COUNCIL    OF  TRENT.  Book  V. 

the  resource  left  them  of  converting  it  into  an  argument ;  for  it 
was  necessary  that  they  should  provide  for  the  case  of  there  being 
a  majority,  notwithstanding  all  they  might  sa}'-,  in  favour  of  the 
divine  right  of  bishops,  and  they  had  to  guard  against  depriving 
themselves  beforehand  of  the  means  of  attenuating  the  bearing 
of  that  vote  to  the  utmost  extent  possible.  Had  they  exclaimed 
with  an  excess  of  zeal  and  alarm  that  it  would  be  tantamount  to 
voting  the  ruin  of  the  hierarchy  and  the  Church,  what,  in  the 
event  of  that  being  voted,  could  they  have  replied  to  the  heretics 
who  might  take  advantage  of  it  as  involving  such  a  result  ?  It 
was  only  in  secret,  therefore,  and  with  many  precautions,  that 
they  represented  to  the  waverers  the  frightful  mischief  they 
would  do  were  they  to  join  the  Spaniards.  Next,  as  they  did 
not  venture  as  yet  to  reckon  on  a  respectable  majority,  they  tried 
to  prevent  the  voting  from  taking  place.  "  The  Confession  of 
Augsburg,"  it  was  said,  "  was  silent  on  the  point ;  what  good 
purpose  did  it  serve  to  defend  what  was  not  attacked  ?"  It  was 
replied,  that  though  the  Confession  of  Augsburg  did  not  not  treat 
the  matter  dogmatically,  it  decided  it  sufficienfly  in  point  of  fact, 
seeing  that  it  did  not  acknowledge  either  the  pope  or  the  bishops 
of  the  pope  ;  that  there  was  in  this,  therefore,  very  really  in  the 
eyes  of  Roman  Catholics,  an  error  which  the  council  could  not 
avoid  condemning.  Thus  the  subterfuge  proving  of  no  avail, 
they  had  to  submit  to  the  questions  being  voted  upon. 

The  vote  did  therefore  take  place,  in  order  to  give  precision 
to  the  question,  on  the  adjunction  of  the  M'ords  dc  jure  divino  in 
the  decree,  where  it  is  said  that  bishops  are  superior  to  priests. 
Fiftv-four  voices  were  aiven  for  and  a  hundred  and  twentv-seven 
against.  Is  it  true,  as  Sarpi  affirms,  that  a  certain  number  of 
the  bishops  who  were  partisans  of  the  divine  right,  not  daring 
to  vote  according  to  their  conscience,  and  not  wishing  to  vote 
against  it,  staid  away  ?  Pallavicini  says  no  ;  but  a  letter  from 
Visconti  to  Cardinal  Borromeo  positively  attests  it,  and  Payva,^ 
makes  the  number  of  prelates  at  this  time  attending  the  council 
amount  to  two  hundred  and  thirty.  There  were  about  fifty, 
then,  who  did  not  vote  at  all.  Certain  it  is  that  the  legates 
durst  not  avail  themselves  of  this  vote  as  a  ground  for  stopping 
discussion.  We  see  it  recommence  the  day  following,  and  the 
more  the  dispute  waxed  in  fierceness  the  more  was  it  forgotten 
that  the  heretics  would  take  advantage  of  all  the  admissions 
made  on  both  sides. 

Hence  it  was  that,  in  one  of  the  last  sittings,  the  Polonese 
Zeschowid,  Bishop  of  Segna,  was  not  afraid  to  transfer  the  ques- 
tion to  the  ever  perilous  ground  of  the  constitution  and  authority 

*  Defense  dn  Coneile  de  Trente,  1.  1. 


Chap.  IV.  1502.       SPEECH   OF  THE   BISHOP   OP   SEOiNA.  S89 

of  the  council.  "  11' llie  authority  of  the  bishops,"  said  he,  "does 
not  proceed  from  God,  what  can  that  of  an  assemblage  of  bishops 
amount  to  ?  An  assembly,  however  numerous,  can  derive  its 
authority  only  from  the  same  source  from  which  the  members 
themselves  derive  theirs.  If  each  of  us  be  nothing  but  what 
the  jDope  makes  us,  the  council  is  nothing  but  what  he  makes 
it,  and  our  authority  sinks  to  the  level  of  a  body  of  doctors  pro- 
nouncing, but  not  infallibly,  on  the  questions  submitted  to  them. 
This  assuredly  is  not  the  idea  of  the  council,  that  the  nations 
and  kings  that  have  been  urgently  calling  for  it  had  formed  to 
themselves.  As  for  myself,"  said  he,  "  had  1  not  had  the  con- 
viction that  we  should  be  here  with  the  sanction  of  God  and  of 
the  Holy  Ghost,  never  should  I  have  come  to  Trent.  Since  there 
possibly  may  come  to  be,  what  I  never  suspected,  uncertainties 
with  respect  to  the  nature  of  our  authority  as  council,  from  the 
first,  what  Christendom,  what  we  ourselves,  ought  to  believe 
and  to  teach  upon  this  point  ?  In  secular  law  proceedings,  from 
the  moment  that  there  is  the  slightest  doubt  with  respect  to  the 
competence  of  the  tribunal,  does  it  not  begin  by  examining  that 
question  itself,  and  by  declaring  in  virtue  of  what  sanction,  its 
judgment  will  be  pronounced  ?" 

The  Bishop  of  Segna  very  well  knew  why  this  had  not  been 
done,  and  what  where  the  hindrances  opposed  to  its  ever  bein"- 
done.  As  for  his  argimients,  we  heartily  agree  with  them,  but 
with  this  remark  with  regard  to  them  as  well  as  those  of  all  the 
prelates  of  the  opposition,  that  they  went  a  great  deal  farther 
than  he  had  the  appearance  of  believing,  "  If  each  bishop," 
said  he,  "  derives  authority  only  from  the  pope,  then  no  more  will 
an  assembly  of  bishops  derive  theirs  from  any  other  source." 
What,  .then,  would  have  been  his  reply,  if,  pursuing  the  same 
line  of  argument,  but  giving  it  a  ditierent  application,  it  had 
been  said  to  him,  "  Each  bishop  is  fallible  ;  an  assembly  of 
bishops,  therefore,  cannot  be  infalhble  ?" 

This  speech  efiectually  opened  all  eyes  to  the  perils  of  the 
situation.  Many  of  the  leading  partisans  of  the  divine  right 
began  to  be  seriously  alarmed  at  the  consequences  that  might 
result  from  a  dispute  which  nobody  knew  how  to  bring  to  a 
close. 

The  ullramontanists  were  confounded.  AVhat  was  now  to  be 
done  ?  To  rai.se  the  cry  of  heresy  I  But  those  same  Spaniards 
had  shewn  themselves,  in  all  questions  relating  to  doctrine,  the 
stiffest  defenders  of  Romanism.  They  had  repeatedly  held  firm 
when  the  pope  himself  luul  been  disposed  to  yield  ;  they  were, 
moreover,  the  representatives  of  the  only  prince  who  had  as  yet 
made  no  concession  to  heretics.      Should  they  proceed  to  vote  ? 


890  HISTORY    OF   THE    COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  V. 

But  a  vote  had  been  already  taken,  and  the  discussion  had  con- 
tinued notwithstanding.  The  majority  durst  not  avail  itself  of 
the  vote  they  had  obtained ;  they  felt  that  to  vote  Avas  not  to 
reply,  especially  on  a  question  in  a  great  measure  historical,  and 
on  which  every  one  might  exercise  his  own  judgment.  They 
proceeded,  therefore,  to  attempt  a  reply  once  for  all,  and  that 
through  Lainez  as  their  organ,  the  general  of  the  Jesuits,  to- 
wards whom  the  eyes  of  all  Italy  had  long  been  turned.  Ever 
since  the  colloquy  of  Poissy,  where  he  had  won  the  esteem  and 
admiration  of  the  Roman  party  by  his  audacity,  he  had  been 
rapidly  rising  in  reputation ;  the  court  of  Rome  and  the  nltra- 
montanists  of  all  countries  had  magnified  him  in  proportion  to 
the  services  expected  from  him  and  his  order.  To  your  task, 
then,  eldest  born  of  Loyola  !  Behold  the  scaffolding  that  re- 
quires being  propped  I  Behold  Spain,  most  Catholic  Spain,  set- 
tino-  herself  to  unsettle  its  foundations,  though  never  unsettled 
before.     It  is  time,  and  more  than  time,  that  help  were  at  hand. 

On  the  20th  of  October,  1562,  Lainez  addressed  the  council. 
His  friends  had  contrived  to  secure  an  entire  sitting  for  him. 
Great  was  the  expectation  on  both  sides. 

Shall  we  take  his  speech,  then,  as  reported  in  Sarpi  or  in  Pal- 
lavicini  ?  They  both  state  that  they  had  transcribed  it  from  an 
authentic  copy,  and  yet  these  two  speeches  have  almost  nothing 
in  common  except  their  doctrine.  That  given  by  Sarpi  is  the 
better  reasoned  of  the  two  ;  that  in  Pallavicini  is  the  more  subtle, 
more  Jesuitical,  using  that  expression  not  offensively,  but  merely 
as  expressive  of  the  feeling  we  experience  from  it.  The  historian, 
accordingly,  considers  it  as  "magnificent,"  though  he  admits  that 
that  of  Sarpi  has  fine  passages  in  it,  and  that  he  himself  long 
believed  it  authentic.  For  the  rest  he  gives  no  Avarranty  for 
his  own  being  more  so.  All  tilings  well  considered,  that  of  Sarpi 
seems  to  us  to  do  more  honour  to  Lainez  than  the  long  tissue  of 
quibbles  of  which  the  historian  makes  him  the  author.  More- 
over, the  doctrines  laid  down  in  both  are  the  same,  and  our 
observations  will  bear  as  much  as  possible  on  what  forms  the 
essence  of  both. 

Thus,  according  to  Sarpi,  he  first  laid  down  the  principle  that 
all  comparison  between  the  Church  and  civil  societies  was  neces- 
sarily inexact.  Civil  societies  have  in  themselves,  said  he,  the 
source  of  all  the  powers  by  means  of  which  they  constitute  and 
maintain  themselves  ;  the  Church,  on  the  contrary,  has  neither 
made  nor  constituted  itself :  it  was  Jesus  Christ,  its  sovereign 
monarch,  who  began  by  laying  down  laws,  and  then  set  himself 
to  construct  the  body  which  those  laws  were  to  govern.  From 
this  we  see  that  the  Church  came  into  being  posterior  to  the 


Chap.  IV.  1502.     DISCOURSE   PRONOUNCED    BY    LAINEZ.  391 

laws,  ill  virtue  ol"  wliicli  she  i.s  what  she  is  ;  essentially  subjoct, 
•  cousequciitly,  she  has  not  in  herself",  and  by  herself,  any  kind  ol" 
liberty,  jurisdiction,  or  power.  Is  she  not  con.stantly  represented 
in  Scripture  under  the  image  of  a  field  that  has  been  sown,  a 
net  thrown  into  the  sea,  a  building  ?  But  a  field  is  not  sown  by 
itself;  a  net  does  not  go  of  its  own  accord  into  the  sea  ;  a  build- 
ing has  not,  and  cannot  have  any  influence  on  its  own  construc- 
tion. Now,  the  first  and  only  foundation  on  which  the  Church 
has  been  built,  in  so  far  as  it  is  a  divine  building,  but  destined 
to  perpetuate  itself  on  the  earth,  is  8t.  Peter.  To  him  were 
given  the  keys  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  ;  to  him  alone  it  was 
said,  "  Feed  my  sheep,"  and  no  one  will  affirm  that  the  sheep 
have  anything  to  do  with  the  direction  of  the  flock  of  which 
each  is  only  a  unit.  AYhen  Jesus  Christ  was  upon  this  earth,  it 
is  evident  that  none  of  the  believers  had  the  smallest  power  or 
the  smallest  jurisdiction.  The  pope  being  his  successor,  nothing 
is  changed,  nothing  can  be  changed,  in  this  primitive  order  :  it 
is  in  the  pope,  therefore,  that  we  have  to  look  for  the  plenitude 
of  power  and  jurisdiction.  Moreover,  it  was  to  St.  Peter  alone 
that  Jesus  Christ  said  that  he  had  prayed  for  him  ''  that  his 
faith  might  not  fail" — there  is  not,  and  there  cannot  be,  anything 
infallible  except  in  the  pope. 

Assuming  this,  still  following  Lainez,  it  was  to  St!  Peter  that 
the  charge  reverted  of  conferring  the  quality  of  bishops  on  his 
colleagues.  Did  he  do  so  ?  The  opinion  is  very  probable  ;  if 
not,  the  simplest  thing  is  to  say  that  Jesus  Christ  did  for  once 
what  behoved  to  have  been  done  by  his  vicar.  The  bishops, 
consequently,  are  the  successors  of  the  Apostles  only  in  the  sense 
of  their  being  in  their  place,  but  just  as  a  bishop  does  not  pre- 
tend to  derive  his  authority  from  his  predecessor,  so  the  Apostles 
were  no  more  than  the  predecessors  of  the  bishops,  and  having 
nothing  properly  inherent  in  themselves,  had  nothing  which 
they  could  leave  to  them.  Will  it  be  said  that,  according  to  this, 
the  pope  would  have  it  in  his  power  to  abolish  the  episcopate  ? 
No.  It  is  of  divine  right  that  there  are  bishops  in  the  Church  ; 
but  this  hinders  not  that  each  bishop,  viewed  individually,  may 
exist  only  by  papal  right.  The  pope  cannot  destroy  at  once  all 
the  bishoprics,  since  it  is  God's  will  that  they  should  exist ;  but 
he  may  pronounce,  in  a  sovereign  manner,  on  the  existence,  or 
the  non-existence,  of  each  bishopric  in  particular.  Though  St. 
Paul  has  said  that  "  the  Church  is  the  pillar  and  foundation  of 
the  truth,"  this  does  not  mean  that  she  is  so  by  herself;  the 
Apostle  thus  expressed  himself  only  because  he  contemplated  the 
Church  in  conjunction  with  her  head,  from  whom  she  cannot  in 
fact  be  separated,  and  who,  in  virtue  of  that  intimate  union, 


i;i)2  HISTORY    OF   THE    COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Booh  V. 

renders  her  infallible  by  the  ssole  fact  of  his  being  and  remaiihng 
at  her  head. 

It  will  be  seen  that  Lainez  did  not  stop  half  way.  Then, 
as  now,  there  was  nothing  complete  and  logical,  but  nltra- 
inuntane  lloman  Catholicism — the  Roman  Catholicism  of  the 
Jesuits.^ 

Happily  the  terms  logical  and  complete,  no  more  now  than 
then,  are  synonymes  for  reasonable  and  true.  Shall  we  attempt 
to  refute  the  above  strange  line  of  argument  in  detail  ?  The 
falseness  of  the  principle  from  which  it  starts  throws  sufficient 
light  on  the  absurdity  of  the  consequences  deduced  from  it.  Lai- 
nez begins  with  saying  that  the  constituent  laws  of  the  Church 
existed  before  her,  and  the  conclusion  he  draws  from  this  is,  that, 
born  in  dependence,  in  that  dependence  she  has  necessarily  re- 
mained. J^o  doubt,  indeed,  if  it  has  been  so  ordered  that  she 
should  be  subject  to  the  pope,  she  ought  to  be  so,  and  to  be  so 
always.  But  has  it  been  really  so  ordered  ?  That  is  the  ques- 
tion. The  more  you  insist  on  attributing  to  God  the  institution 
not  only  of  a  head,  but  of  a  head  such  as  the  pope  conceives 
himself  to  be,  such  as  he  says  that  he  is  when  bold  enough  to 
do  so — the  more  force  should  you  give  to  the  silence  of  Scripture 
on  the  alleged  consequences  of  certain  words  addressed  to  St. 
Peter,  But  in  proportion  as  the  line  of  argument  pursued  by 
Lainez  would  have  shewn  little  tact  in  dealing  with  Protest- 
ants— free  to  attack  the  principle  directly,  and  to  go  up  at  once 
to  the  primitive  equality  of  pastors — it  was  embarrassing  to  men 
who  had  to  uphold  Avith  one  hand  what  they  were  pulling  doM  n 
with  the  other. 

As  to  the  question  of  the  counciFs  authority,  he  had  only  to 
follow  out  his  deductions,  and  the  conclusion  was  prepared  to  his 
hand.  What  others  had  omitted  as  a  serious  objection,  namely, 
that  according  to  his  system  an  assembly  of  bishops  would  be  no- 
thing but  by  the  pope,  he  adopted  as  a  consequence  quite  as  plain, 
and  quite  as  legitimate,  as  any  other.  Among  the  reasons  he 
adduced  there  are  some  precious  ones  to  be  noted,  bearing  against 
those  who  imagine  that  they  escape  all  objections  by  giving  up 
to  us  the  infallibility  of  the  pope,  and  throwing  themselves  on 
that  of  councils.  "  Each  bishop  is  fallible,"  said  Lainez  ;  "  an 
assembly  of  bishops  therefore  is  fallible  also  ;  and  if  you  admit 
Ihcir  decisions  as  infallible,  you  admit,  by  that  of  itself,  that  this 
infallibility  comes  from  elsewhere — that  is  to  say  from  the  pope, 
lor  he  alone  is  called  to  confirm  its  decrees.     Did  the  authority 

^  "  I  venture  not  to  cast  the  smallest  doubt  on  tlie  infallibility  of  a 
council-general ;  all  I  say  is,  that  it  holds  this  liigh  privilege  of  its  head, 
to  Avhoni  the  promises  were  made." — De  Maistee. 


CiiAi'.  IV.    l.'xij.        IJIi:    (iALLlCANS    INCE.N.SEJ)    AT    LALNEZ.  'JO.'J 

of  councils  proceed  from  the  bishops  who  compose  them,  how 
could  we  give  the  name  of  councils-general  to  those  which  were 
never  reckoned  more  than  a  very  small  part  of  the  episcopal 
body?  Under  Paul  111.,"  he  added,  "  have  we  not  seen  the 
most  important  questions  decided  by  fewer  than  fifty  bishops  .' 
If  their  decrees  have  become  laws  of  the  Church,  it  is  not,  evi- 
dently, because  lifty  bishops  liave  been  found  of  the  same  opin- 
ions, but  because  the  pope,  approving  oi"  their  opinions,  has  given 
them  the  force  of  law.  In  every  council,  however  numerous,  if 
the  pope  be  present,  it  is  the  pope  alone  w^io  pronounces,  witness 
the  Ibrmula  Approbante  concilio  or  Pr<xsente  concilio,  employed 
in  this  case,  according  to  which  it  is  clear  that  the  pope  begins 
by  pronouncing,  and  that  the  part  of  the  bishops  is  reduced  to  a 
simple  declaration  of  adhesion,  a  declaration  which  they  could  not 
refuse,  either  individually,  or  as  a  body." 

He  was  right.  This  is  no  more  than  we  have  never  ceased  to 
say  and  demonstrate  from  the  first  page  of  this  history.  When 
a  council  and  a  pope  meet,  one  of  the  two  must  necessarily  be 
everything,  the  other  nothing ;  eveiy  intermediate  solution  is 
illusory  in  point  of  theory,  and  in  practice  impossible.  Ultra- 
montanism  involves  the  annihilation  of  councils ;  Gallicanism 
the  annihilation  of  the  pope.  But  as  Gallicanism,  in  the  end, 
cannot  do  without  the  pope,  w^iile  ultramontanism  does  very 
well  without  councils — all  explanation  of  difficulties  among  Ro- 
man Catholics  is  inevitably  to  the  advantage  of  the  ultramou- 
tanists. 

No  speech  as  yet  had  been  more  praised  or  more  criticised. 
The  ultramontanists  extolled  it  to  the  skies  ;  the  others  saw 
nothing  in  it  but  audacity,  senselessness,  and  impudence.  At 
Rome,  the  only  feeling  was  that  of  alarm  ;  the  speaker  was  well- 
nigh  censured  for  having  spoken  out  so  harshly  the  whole  bear- 
ings of  the  papal  system.  The  legates  even  besought  him  \\o\ 
to  publish  his  speech  ;  and  that  time  might  be  given  for  the  sub- 
sidence of  the  angry  feelings  it  had  excited,  the  sittings  wore 
suspended. 

But  those  angry  feelings  did  not  subside.  The  bishop  of 
Paris  and  the  French  ambassadors  distinguished  themselves  by 
the  bitterness  of  their  complaints.  "  The  Church,  then,"  said  ii 
bishop,  "  is  no  longer  the  spouse  of  Jesus  Christ,  but  a  slave 
prostituted  to  the  caprice  of  a  man  I  This  monstrous  system, 
invented  scarcely  fifty  years  ago,  we  must  hear  supported  in  full 
council  I  And  by  whom  ?  By  an  isolated  and  unknown  doctor? 
No ;  by  a  man  openly  protected  by  the  pope,  openly  cried  up  at 
Rome  as  the  champion  of  the  Church.  The  other  religious  or- 
ders, it  would  appear,  have  not  done  enough  of  mischief,  so  that 


394  HISTORY   OF  THE   COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  V. 

a  new  one  was  required,  already  more  famous  for  its  encroach- 
ments within  than  for  its  successes  without  the  Church.  If  there 
ever  were  councils  in  which  the  pope  alone  pronounced,  it  was 
an  abuse  and  a  usurpation.  In  the  decree  of  the  council  of  Je- 
rusalem, transcribed  at  length  in  the  book  of  the  Acts,  the  pre- 
amble runs — '  The  apostles,  and  elders,  and  brethren.'  Not 
only  is  St.  Peter  not  mentioned,  but  the  decree  is  drawn  up  in 
conformity  with  the  advice  of  St.  James,  who  spoke  the  last.^ 
As  for  the  rest,  we  ought  to  be  very  glad  that  the  chief  of  the 
Jesuits  has  so  clearly  unmasked  the  principles  of  his  order.  One 
may  now  see  whether  the  University  of  Paris  was  wrong  in 
condemning  their  society  as  dangerous  to  the  faith,  and  likely  to 
disturb  the  peace  of  the  church.'' 

All  was  not  equally  correct  in  these  recriminations  ;  but  Pal- 
lavicini  is  still  less  so  in  the  assertions  he  opposes  to  them.  "  It 
was  not  fifty  years  ago,"  said  he,  "  but  two  centuries  ago,  that 
the  doctrine  of  Lainez  was  maintained,  and  by  a  Frenchman, 
too,  Noel  Herve."  Two  centuries  !  That  brings  us  a  great  wav, 
indeed,  in  the  settlement  of  a  question  bearing  on  a  matter 
which  ought  to  have  dated,  not  from  two  but  from  sixteen  cen- 
turies before  I  It  is  true  that  one  might  further  quote  Albert, 
Bonaventura,  Durand,  and  others,  more  ancient  than  Herve, 
who,  "  without  openly  professing  it,"  adds  the  historian,  "  speak 
of  it  in  a  very  favourable  manner."  Though  they  had  spoken 
of  it  still  more  favourably,  it  would  only  be  carrjdng  the  date 
two  or  three  centuries  fartiier  back  ;  what  shall  we  make  of  the 
nine  or  ten  remaining  centuries  ?  Betwixt  the  opinion  of  Lainez 
and  that  of  the  Apostles,  said  the  bishop,  there  is  an  abyss  of 
sixteen  centuries.  No,  says  Pallavicini,  this  is  a  calumny.  The 
abyss  is  one  of  only  a  thousand  years.  Singular  candour  I  Then, 
says  he  also,  is  it  not  a  calumny,  "  furious  and  extravagant,"  to 
make  this  bishop  speak  thus  ?  As  if  he  had  said  anything  that 
was  not  then  in  the  mouths  of  all  Galileans  I  But  let  us  mark, 
at  least,  how  matters  then  stood  with  almost  the  whole  higher 
clergy  of  France,  and  that  in  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, in  the  face  of  the  conquests  made  by  the  Reformation, 
when  all  things  seemed  to  urge  them  to  press  closely  round  their 
Church's  head.  AYhat  a  change  has  taken  place  since  then ! 
And  how  surprised  would  be  the  bishops  of  that  period,  and  those, 

^  "St.  James  spoke  in  his  turn  from  the  elevation  of  his  patriarchal 
see,"  says  de  Maistre,  "  only  to  confirm  what  the  chief  of  the  Apostles 
had  decided.^'  So  to  arrange  the  narrative  of  the  Acts,  is  not  only  to 
alter  it  but  to  parodj'  it.  One  might  as  well  represent  St.  Peter  with 
the  tiara  on  his  heacf,  and  surrounded  with  cardinals,  as  he  is  seen  in 
some  paintings  of  the  fifteenth  century. 


Chap.  IV.  15G2.      A   PLUNGE   INTO    FALSE   PRINCIPLES.  396 

too,  of  the  seventeenth  century,  -with  Bossuet  at  their  head,  to 
see  their  successors  now  on  their  knees  hefore  the  pope  and  the 
Jesuits  I  Is  tliis  any  just  matter  oi"  astonishment  ?  The  human 
mind  has  no  hking  lor  false  positions.  The  consequences  of  Gal- 
hcanism  have  been  felt ;  it  has  been  clearly  seen,  that  in  presence 
of  an  essentially  reasoning  age,  a  choice  must  be  made  between 
Rome  and  liberty.  But  liberty  is  Protestantism,  if  not  in  its 
theological  doctrines,  at  least  in  its  principles,  and  the  same 
principles  quickly  lead  to  the  same  doctrines.  There  was  a 
recoil ;  there  was  a  shudder.  But  Rome  opened  her  arms,  and 
men  have  thrown  themselves  into  her  embrace.  There  has  been 
a  plunge  made  into  false  principles  ;  but  with  the  consolation 
at  least  of  its  having  been  made  according  to  the  strict  rules  ol" 
logic. 


CHAPTER   Y. 

(1562.) 

ATIRIVAL     OF     CARDINAL     LORRAINE.        NEW     POLITICAL     COMPLI- 
CATIONS. 

The  Cardinal  of  Lorraine — Precautions  taken — Urgency  of  the  Span- 
iards— Rumours  and  factions — New  draft  of  the  decree  on  residence 
— A  return  to  what  had  been  prepared  in  1551 — Point  of  issue — 
Arrival  of  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine — ^His  speech — ^What  were  at  bot- 
tom his  projects — New  causes  of  distrust — ^The  pope's  illness — The 
Cardinals — Historical  remarks — No  foundation  for  their  rights — The 
Cardinal  of  Lorraine  describes  the  calamities  of  France — Du  Terrier's 
conclusions — Ours — In  what  sense  the  Church  has  a  horror  for  blood 
— New  fluctuations  on  the  Cardinal's  part — A  bad  Frenchman,  a  bad 
Spaniard — Fabian  delays — The  pope  sends  three  formulas  on  the  in- 
stitution of  bishops — They  say  too  little,  or  too  much — Agreement 
on  any  point  impossible — Battle  of  Dreux — Pius  lY.  considers  the 
success  gained  contemptible — Demands  of  the  court  of  France — The 
pope  pretends  to  dread  a  revolt — Offers  of  money — Nothing  is  ready 
— The  cardinal's  journey  to  the  emperor — Ferdinand's  complaints 
against  the  council  and  the  pope — The  court  of  France  sends  to  in- 
quire what  have  become  of  the  promised  reforms. 

The  unflinching  spirit  of  the  bishop  of  Paris  still  farther  in- 
creased the  alarm,  already  so  violent,  felt  by  the  Italians  at  the 
approaching  arrival  of  his  colleagues.  The  Cardinal  of  Lorraine 
was  announced  as  likely  to  reach  Trent  early  in  November.  It 
was  known  he  had  vaunted  that  he  would  have  limits  set  to  the 
power,  and  still  more  to  the  gains  of  the  court  of  Rome  ;  his  ar- 
rival, accordingly,  says  Pallavicini  innocently,  was  contemplated 
with  great  horror.  The  legates  had  been  for  some  time  occu- 
pied in  noting  certain  abuses  beyond  Italy,  particularly  in  France, 
and  more  or  less  cherished  by  the  French  episcopate.  These 
they  kept  in  reserve,  ready  to  be  proposed  for  reformation  as  soon 
as  the  new  comers  should  shew  themselves  too  urgent  on  other 
points  ;  and  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine,  who  had  accumulated 
benefices  to  the  amount  of  three  hundred  thousand  crowns,  was 
more  interested  than  any  one  else  in  not  provoking  reprisals. 
Nothing  was  neglected,  whether  in  the  way  of  insensibly  aug- 
menting the  number  of  the  Italians,  or.  still  more,  of  keeping 


Chap.  V.  150-'.  URGEMJV    OF   THE   SPAMARDS.  G'J7 

them  imited  and  docile,  for  one  or  other  of  them  every  day 
seemed  to  acquire  a  taslc  lor  those  dreaded  ideas  of  divine  right 
and  episcopal  independence.  Finally,  as  a  resource  against  the 
worst  that  might  happen,  the  legates  had  asked  from  the  pope 
new  plenipotentiary  powers  lor  transferring  the  council  to  an- 
other place,  or  dissolving  it  altogether. 

The  commission  charged  with  clahorating  the  decrees  had 
long  been  exclusively  occupied  with  the  canon  on  the  institution 
of  bishops.  On  the  20th  of  October,  after  the  speech  of  Laincz, 
that  commission  had  been  augmented  by  an  addition  of  four 
members.  "  It  is  not  to  be  believed,"  says  Pallavicini,^  "  with 
Avhat  diligence  and  what  attention  those  who  were  charged  with 
drawing  up  that  canon,  laboured  to  invent  and  compare  an  in- 
finity of  forms,  turns  of  expression,  and  terms.  It  was  of  im- 
portance to  find  some  that  would  plainly  declare  what  was  the 
faith  upon  this  article,  without,  at  the  same  time,  furnishing  to 
ardent  minds  occasion  to  make  interpretations  either  contrary  to 
the  faith,  or  little  in  conformity  with  its  teaching  ?"  Ever  the 
faitJi  and  tlie  tcacliing  of  the  faith.  Where  was  this  teach- 
ing, then,  since  it  was  upon  the  very  essentials  of  the  question 
that  it  was  found  impossible  to  come  to  a  common  understand- 
ing*, and  that,  after  infinite  new  efibrts,  it  was  resolved  in  the  end 
that  nothing  should  be  said  ?  The  Roman  historian  speaks  al- 
ways as  if  the  council  had  perfectly  known  W'hat  it  had  to  say, 
and  had  been  ill  at  ease  only  about  the  forms.  "  In  the  end," 
he  goes  on  to  say,  "  one  was  found  which  the  legates  proposed  to 
the  Spaniards  on  the  evening  of  the  28th,  so  that  there  might  be 
nothing  to  prev^ent  its  being  put  to  the  vote  in  the  congregation 
which  was  to  meet  on  the  following  day.  The  Spaniards  still 
rejected  it.  Then,  indignant  at  those  prelates  whom  nothing 
could  soften,  the  legates  resolved  to  make  the  council  vote  oi^ 
the  draft  as  proposed,  and  to  declare  it  final  should  the  majority 
accept  it.  Tlic  cool  7iight  air,  lioiccver,  having  moderated 
their  ardour,  they  again  met  with  some  prelates  wdio  enjoyed 
their  confidence,  and  tried  to  find  new  means  of  conciliation." 

Upon  this  the  Spaniards  craved  an  audience.  They  had 
come,  they  said,  to  see  if  it  was  to  be  finally  decided  that  a 
canon,  embodying  their  views,  should  be  proposed.  After  such 
long  discussions,  and  amid  the  excitement  they  had  produced 
throughout  Europe,  the  council  could  no  longer  abstain  from 
pronouncing  a  decision.  They  declared,  in  fine,  that,  should 
their  request  be  rejected,  they  would  attend  no  more  congrega- 
tions. 

Upon   this   the  whole   city  was   in   commotion.     Two-score 

'  Book  xviii.  eli.  16. 


398  HISTORY  OF   THE   COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  V. 

Italian  bishops  repaired  to  the  legates,  in  a  body,  to  ask,  on  the 
contrary,  that  the  question  of  the  divine  right  should  be  left  out. 
and  that  the  council  should  keep  to  voting  on  what  had  been 
proposed.  The  agitation  ^vent  on  increasing.  Everybody  vras 
obliged  to  take  a  side,  and  the  Spanish  faction,  recruited  with 
several  Italian  prelates,  openly  formed  a  band  apart  from  the 
rest.  Division  spread  even  among  the  legates.  The  Cardinal 
of  Mantua,  as  we  have  seen,  had  at  no  time  been  much  opposed 
to  the  Spanish  doctrine  ;  he  often  allowed  it  to  be  seen  that  his 
charge  alone  prevented  him  from  making  common  cause  with 
them.  Cardinal  Seripandi,  too,  was  not  very  far  from  holding 
their  views ;  but  it  was  Cardinal  Simonetta,  an  ultra-Honlan, 
that  led  the  majority.  Cardinal  Hosius  had  never  had  much 
influence,  and  Cardinal  Altemps  had  gone  away. 

It  was  necessary,  however,  that  they  should  again  set  to  work. 
This  was  hazarded  on  the  3d  of  November  ;  and,  thanks  to  the 
feeling  generally  entertained  of  the  mischief  done  by  these  in- 
terminable disputes,  the  prelates  all  proved  a  little  more  calm. 
The  Spaniards  had,  moreover,  received  from  their  king  a  new 
letter,  exhorting  them  to  do  nothing  to  the  prejudice  of  the  Holy 
See  ;  a  vague  letter,  and  manifestly  solicited  by  the  pope,  but  to 
which  they  could  not  altogether  dispense  with  paying  some'  at- 
tention. In  fine,  as  the  question  of  the  divine  right  was,  after 
all,  a  less  serious  one  in  the  old  subject  of  residence  than  in  that 
of  the  institution  of  bishops,  since  this  last  touched  upon  the 
institution  and  the  very  existence  of  the  pope,  it  was  decided 
that  they  should  fall  back  upon  the  other,  and  stop  first  at  it. 

The  legates,  accordingly,  presented  the  draft  of  a  decree,  in 
which,  setting  theory  aside,  they  established  a  complete  jurispru- 
dence of  rewards  and  punishments,  for  the  purpose  of  engaging  to 
residence,  and,  if  necessary,  compelling  to  it.  Of  all  possible  so- 
lutions, this  was  the  least  honourable  to  the  Episcopate.  Money 
played  the  chief  part  in  it ;  and  it  was  on  the  side  of  money, 
also,  that  the  afiair  was  doomed  to  come  to  nothing.  The  de- 
cree, among  other  clauses,  bore  that  resident  bishops  should  not 
be  forced  to  pay  to  sovereigns  tithes,  or  subsidies,  or  any  tax 
whatever  ;  and  the  ambassadors  began  to  protest. 

The  bishops,  on  their  side,  could  hardly  appreciate  a  favour 
of  this  nature.  They  were  too  well  aware  that  the  afiair  was 
not  within  the  competence  of  a  council,  and  that  there  would 
always  be  found  occasions  when  the  pope  could  not  refuse  to 
sovereigns  permission  to  tax  the  clergy.  The  decree,  accord- 
inorlv,  could  not  even  be  submitted  to  dehberation,  under  that 
form  at  least,  and  it  was  afterwards  reduced  to  a  simple  ex- 
planation of  Avhat  had  been  decreed  in  1547.     Meanwhile,  not- 


Chap.  V.  1562.    GREAT  INFLUENCE  OF  ANTIQUITY  IN  ROMANISM.     3'J9 

withstaiuliiig  the  greater  willingness  to  come  to  a  better  agree- 
ment with  each  other,  none  could  confine  himself  to  the  less 
dangerous  ground  to  which  it  had  been  hoped  that  the  discussion 
miglit  be  brought.  The  institution  of  bishops  was  found,  as 
betbre,  the  hrst  and  only  subject  of  debate. 

The  bishop  of  Segovia  having  declared,  that  to  the  best  of  his 
recollection,  the  question  had  been  decided  in  1551,  and  that  in 
the  sense  of  the  divine  right,  it  was  necessary  to  have  recourse 
to  the  minutes  of  that  period  ;  but  as  the  bishop  insisted,  con- 
sidering that  he  could  trust  better  to  his  memory  than  to  all  that 
might  be  adduced  by  those  who  had  not  been  present  vuider 
Julius  III.,  this  incident  occupied  some  days.  It  was  proved 
that  the  draft  of  the  decree,  to  which  the  bishop  wanted  to  ap- 
peal as  his  authority,  had  not  then  been  either  voted  by  the  as- 
sembly, or  so  much  as  examined  in  congregation-general ;  but, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  Spaniard  was  not  mistaken — the  divine 
right  was  there.  However,  as  the  divines  of  the  old  council 
likewise  had  ever  been  at  far  more  pains  to  be  obscure  than  to 
avoid  all  equivocation,  several  phrases  gave  rise  to  warm  dis- 
putes. Although  the  words,  divine  right,  were  found  there, 
still  it  might  be  maintained  that,  strictly  speaking,  the  thing 
itself  was  not.  At  the  same  time,  this  discussion  presented  a 
striking  enough  example  of  the  efiects  of  the  Roman  system  of 
authority.  Although  this  old  draft  of  a  decree  was  the  work  of 
a  commission,  and  dated  but  a  dozen  years  back,  it  was  already 
spoken  of  and  examined  with  a  sort  of  respect.  The  partisans 
of  the  divine  right  recalled  it  as  an  argument  of  great  weight ; 
nor  would  their  adversaries  have  ventured  to  say  that  it  gave 
them  no  uneasiness.  Do  not  we  here  find  Homan  Catholicism, 
as  it  were,  caught  in  the  act  ?  The  history  of  her  doctrines  may 
be  said  to  be  all  comprised,  in  this  constant  tendency  to  consider 
more  or  less  as  legitimate  and  true,  all  that  is  not  new,  and  to 
make  years,  in  some  sort,  the  first  element  of  truth.  Far  less 
importance  would  have  been  given  to  that  same  draft,  to  which 
so  much  weight  was  attached  because  it  was  ten  years  old,  had 
it  been  only  four  or  five  ;  but  had  it  been  a  hundred,  or  two 
hundred  years  old,  and  not  contrary  to  the  views  of  the  majority, 
that  majority  would  have  seized  on  it  as  a  precious  and  unas- 
sailable tradition.  See  with  what  assurance  the  Roman  con- 
troversialists give  the  first  rank,  among  their  proofs,  to  antiquity. 
In  popular  polemics,  it  often  happens  that  they  do  not  even  at- 
tempt to  give  any  other.  We  hear  every  day  repeated,  regard- 
ing Protestantism  and  the  Protestants,  what  the  pagans  used  of 
old  to  say  in  this  respect  of  Christianity.  Yet,  what  was  the 
answer  of  the  Fathers '?     "  That  it  was  not  by  the  lapse  of  time 


400  HISTORY    OF    THE   COUNCIL   OF   TRExNT.  Book  V. 

that  the  authority  of  religion  is  to  be  measured."'  "  The  pa- 
gans vaunt  their  antiquity,  as  if  truth  hath  need  of  being  ancient. 
It  is  a  diabohcal  custom  to  make  antiquity  an  argument  in 
favour  of  Hes."^ 

So  this  matter  was  once  more  left  without  issue.  It  had  been 
hoped  that  it  might  be  concluded  before  the  arrival  of  the  French  ; 
but  when  it  was  seen  that  this  was  not  to  be  dreamt  of,  the  le- 
gates Avere  the  first  to  propose  that  they  should  be  w^aited  for. 
It  was  at  least  a  mode  of  gaining  time.  The  Cardinal  of  Lor- 
raine travelled  slowly,  attended  by  a  retinue  like  that  of  a  prince. 
On  the  9th  of  November,  when  word  came  that  he  had  entered 
Italy,  it  was  decided  that  the  meeting  should  be  suspended  until 
he  was  in  Trent ;  and,  at  all  events,  that  no  session  should  be 
held  until  the  26th.  He  arrived  on  the  13th,  and  was  received 
with  great  honours.  The  legates  went  to  meet  him,  accom- 
panied by  a  crowd  of  prelates,  and  conducted  him  in  procession 
to  his  hotel.  Several  French  bishops  accompanied  him,  and 
several  followed  soon  after. 

Next  day  the  legates  received  him  at  an  audience  as  bearer  of 
a  letter  from  Charles  IX.  He  gave  them  an  agreeable  surprise, 
by  the  moderation  and  mildness  of  his  language  ;  but  it  could 
not  be  doubted  that  politeness  and  prudence  had  much  to  do 
with  this.  He  protested  that  he  came  with  good  intentions  ;  he 
declared  that  he  had  no  wish  to  propose  anything  to  the  assem- 
bly, without  the  previous  assent  of  the  legates  and  of  the  pope. 
As  for  the  grand  debate  of  the  day,  he  said  that  in  his  opinion 
people  should  not  shew  too  much  eagerness  in  diving  into  theo- 
retical questions ;  that  although  he  was  inclined  to  hold  the  di- 
vine right,  he  did  not  see  the  necessity  of  teaching  it  by  a  decree. 
He  added — as  had  never  ceased  to  be  repeated,  ever  since  the 
opening  of  the  council,  by  all  that  were  not  in  the  fetters  of  the 
Roman  party — that  a  good  and  solid  disciplinary  reformation 
was  the  sole  means  either  of  bringing  back  the  Protestants,  or  of 
confirming  the  Catholics.  On  this  latter  point  he  spoke  truly  ; 
as  lor  the  Protestants,  he  had  viewed  them  too  closely  not  to 
know  that  the  finest  reforms  could  no  longer  induce  them  to  shut 
their  eyes  to  questions  of  doctrine.  He  complained,  in  fine,  that 
the  king  had  not  yet  been  able  to  get  more  than  twenty-five 
thousand  crowns  of  all  that  had  been  offered  to  him.  He  re- 
monstrated, that  if  people  persisted  in  exacting,  as  conditions  of 
gift  and  loan,  declarations  contrary  to  the  liberties  of  the  king- 
dom, it  was  tantamount  to  saying  that  they  would  give  nothing. 

*  Cyprian,  against  the  Gentiles,  b.  ii. 

^  Hie  est  mos  diabolicus,  iit  per  antiquitatis  tradueom  eommendatur 
fallacia.     (Augustine.  Questions  on  th*^  Old  and  New  Testament.) 


Chap.  V.  1J02.     INSTIIUCTIONS  OF  THE  CAIIDINAL  OF  LORRAINE       lOl 

On  this  last  article  it  was  replied,  that  the  pope  had  too  much 
love  ibr  France,  and  lor  the  king  oi"  France,  to  have  added  to 
his  henelits  any  conditions  which  his  conscience  did  not  imperi- 
ously dictate.  This  amounted  to  saying,  frankly  enough,  that  the 
pope  could  not  in  conscience  enter  into  any  sort  of  terms  with 
the  Galileans.  The  legates  were  frank  enough,  also,  on  some 
other  point.s.  They  said  the  time  was  gone  when  one  might 
hope  to  bring  back  the  heretics  by  means  of  some  disciplinary 
concessions,  some  reforms  of  abuses  ;  that  the  Catholics,  there- 
fore, and  they  alone,  were  to  be  looked  to.  As  for  internal  ame- 
liorations, they  dared  not  boast  of  the  little  that  had  hitherto 
been  done  ;  they  too  well  knew  that  the  cardinal  was  one  of 
those  M'ho  thought  that  they  had  done  nothing.  They  confined 
themselves,  as  during  the  past,  to  protesting  the  good  intentions 
of  the  pope,  who,  they  said,  had  already  begun  the  reformation 
of  his  court,  although  to  the  detriment  of  his  finances. 

In  a  word,  the  cardinal's  language  little  accorded  with  what 
people  believed  they  knew  of  his  intentions  and  those  of  his  fel- 
low-countrymen. What,  m  point  of  fact,  were  his  projects  ? 
"We  shall  reach  the  close  of  this  history  without  knowing  more 
than  we  learn  here.  Man  is  never  more  impenetrable  than  under 
the  garb  of  frankness  ;  the  Italians  were  children  in  presence  of 
this  great  actor  who  ascended  their  stage,  to  leave  them,  never- 
theless, in  the  end,  if  not  the  honour,  at  least  the  profits  of  the 
piece.  As  for  the  instructions  he  had  received — but  with  au- 
thority to  exhibit  them  only  so  far  as  he  might  deem  fitting,  the 
chief  points,  according  to  Pallavicini,  were  as  follows  : 

In  discipline,  they  included  the  reform  of  the  clergy,  and  the 
correction  of  all  the  abuses  that  it  was  possible  to  reach  : — that 
the  cardinal  should  not  be  too  eager  to  attack  such  as  had  their 
seat  principally  at  Rome  ;  that  he  should  aj)proach  these  by  lit- 
tle and  little,  always  putting  in  the  foreground  the  king's  inten- 
tion to  apply  himself  vigorously  to  the  extirpation  of  all  those  of 
his  own  kingdom. 

In  doctrine  and  in  M'orship,  they  included  the  concession  of 
the  cup,  not  only  to  the  Reformed,  but  to  all  the  king's  subjects  ; 
the  mass  and  prayers  in  French,  except  in  monasteries  and  non- 
parochial  churches ;  the  psalms  to  be  chanted  in  French,  but 
after  being  revised  and  approved  by  the  bishops.  Next,  but  to 
be  proposed  to  the  council  only  as  circumstances  might  require, 
the  marriage  of  the  priests,  and  the  abandonment  of  ecclesiasti- 
cal property. 

Such  then  M'as  the  secret  baggage  of  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine. 
Many  French  prelates  openly  talked  over  it,  and  this  he  did 
nothing  to  prevent.      Certain  enough  information,  moroever,  had 


402  HISTORY   OF  THE    COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  V. 

been  got,  that  he  had  come  to  a  secret  understanding  with  the 
king  of  Spain,  with  the  emperor,  and  even  with  the  king  of 
Bohemia,  son  of  the  emperor,  and  almost  a  Lutheran.  In  fine, 
notwithstanding  all  his  reiterated  disavowals  of  having  political 
objects  in  view,  no  one  would  allow  that  so  powerful  and  able  a 
prelate  could  come  to  Trent  as  a  mere  French  archbishop,  with 
the  simple  object  of  adding  one  more  to  the  council,  and  quietly 
concurring  towards  the  passing  of  the  decrees. 

Two  events,  one  of  small  the  other  of  sufficient  importance, 
soon  complicated  the  state  of  affairs,  after  being  apparently  sim- 
plified by  the  cardinal's  arrival. 

On  the  19th  of  November  the  Archbishop  of  Otranto  gave  a 
grand  dinner,  and  not  only  were  Italians  only  invited,  but  he 
had  been  so  imprudent  as  to  have  it  intimated  to  them  to  be 
careful  not  to  absent  themselves,  as  their  attendance  was  of 
consequence  to  the  Holy  See.  What  passed  at  this  entertain- 
ment may  have  been  of  no  great  consequence,  for  real  conspira- 
cies never  court  attention  in  such  a  way ;  but  not  the  less  did 
it  lead  to  the  belief  in  a  general  combination  of  the  Italians 
against  the  Spaniards  and  the  French. 

The  other  circumstance  was  as  follows.  The  pope  had  fallen 
into  a  serious  illness.  Hardly  had  he  recovered  when  he  heard 
that  the  French  ambassadors  had  intrigued  at  Trent,  and  even 
at  Rome,  to  secure  that  the  next  pope  should  be  elected  by  the 
council  and  not  by  the  cardinals.  Now,  of  all  the  prerogatives 
of  the  court  of  Rome,  if  there  be  none  greater  in  its  eyes  than 
that  of  electing  the  Church's  chief,  no  more  is  there  any  of  which 
the  foundations  are  more  doubtful,  more  fragile,  more  manifestly 
human.  Even  were  it  not  proved  that  the  faithful  of  all  the 
churches,  at  Rome  as  elsewhere,  long  had  a  part,  and  a  great 
part  too,  in  the  election  of  their  bishops,  it  would  ever  remain 
to  be  explained  why  the  clergy  themselves  have  not  the  power 
of  electing  their  head.  Shall  we  be  told  that  the  extent  of  the 
Church,  and  the  impossibility  of  assembling  her  pastors,  have 
led  by  the  sheer  force  of  circumstances,  to  the  creation  of  a  per- 
manent and  more  compact  electoral  body  ?  Surely  Rome  then 
ought  to  have  begun  by  recognising  in  the  cardinals  the  quality 
of  delegates  of  the  Church,  which  she  has  never  done,  Avhich 
she  even  could  not  do,  since  it  is  the  pope  that  names  and  has 
the  sole  right  of  naming  them.  On  the  other  hand,  the  more 
you  tend  to  exalt  into  popes  all  bishops  that  have  sat  at  Rome, 
the  more  you  Avill  have  of  them  who  have  neither  been  elected 
by  the  cardinals  nor  been  cardinals  themselves ;  whence  we 
must  conclude,  if  not  that  the  cardinals  are  useless,  at  least  that 
their  concurrence  is  by  no  means  absolutely  necessary  in  the 


Chap.  V.  150-2.  ORIGIN    OF   THE    CARUINALATE.  403 

election  of  llie  Church's  head.  It  i.s  evident,  thereibre,  that  if 
a  council-general  wishes  to  name  a  pope,  it  has  the  power  of 
doing  so,  and  that  if  it  seem  good  to  it  not  even  to  take  him 
Irom  the  college  of  Cardinals,  it  may  do  that  too.  Sucli  was 
the  reasoning  at  Trent  of  the  French  ambassadors  and  their  ad- 
herents. 

And  it  was  not  for  the  first  time  that  the  sacred  college  heard 
the  questions  ])ut,  "  Who  are  you  ?  Where  do  you  come  from  ?" 
Long  before  the  council  of  Constance  had  settled  the  question 
by  making  a  pope,  more  than  one  bold  hand  had  dared  to  draw 
aside  the  purple  veil  which  was  always  becoming  thicker  and 
thicker  between  the  Church  and  her  head.  The  cardinals  had 
not  risen  to  such  a  pitch  of  greatness  and  pride  without  some 
having  dared  from  time  to  time,  were  it  from  nothing  but  jeal- 
ousy, to  inquire  into  the  foundations  of  their  grandeur.  More- 
over, there  was  no  need  for  these  researches  to  go  very  deep. 
All  the  world  could  know,  that  the  title  of  cardinal  had  Ions 
been  a  mere  epithet  commonly  used  in  many  dioceses  to  distin- 
guish parish  priests  from  simple  clergymen,  the  incardinati,  or 
men  attached  by  hinges  to  the  Church,  from  those  who  served 
it  occasionally  only,  and  without  any  fixed  tie  ;  that  the  cardi- 
nals at  Rome,  consequently,  had  begun  by  being  merely  the 
curates  of  the  Bishop  of  Rome  ;  that  if,  at  that  period,  they  con- 
curred in  the  election  of  the  pope,  it  was  as  parish  priests,  and 
along  with  the  rest  of  the  clergy.  At  that  time  when  a  cardi- 
nal became  bishop,  he  dropt  his  title  of  cardinal ;  he  could  no  more 
have  had  the  idea  of  keeping  it  than  a  parish  priest  on  becom- 
ing a  bishop  would  at  the  present  day  retain  that  of  parish 
priest.  In  a  diploma  of  the  year  943,  the  parochial  churches 
are  called  cardinal  churches.  In  997,  seven  priests  of  Aix-la- 
chapelle  received  from  Gregory  V.  the  title  of  cardinals.  In  the 
eleventh  century  the  title  began  to  be  considered  one  of  honour, 
several  Italian  bishops  assumed  it  of  themselves,  and  yet  were 
not  on  that  account  charged  with  usurpation.  We  see  it  borne 
by  the  prebendaries  of  Compostella,  Orleans,  London,  and  several 
other  cities.  At  Ravenna  it  was  still  in  use  at  the  time  of  the 
council  of  Trent,  seeing  that  it  was  abolished  by  Pius  V.  in  1598. 
In  fine,  it  is  proved  that  in  1196,  the  cardinals  that  were  not 
bishops  had  not  as  yet  obtained  the  precedency  of  bishops.' 

Thus  it  would  not  even  be  consistent  with  the  truth  to  say 

'  See,  for  more  details,  Ilurter's  Institutions  of  the  Churcli.  In  1187 
a  bull  by  Pope  Clement  III.  in  favour  of  the  prior  and  canons  of  the 
Churcli  of  St.  Andrews,  is  signed  by  Pope  Clement,  two  bishops,  and 
seven  cardinals,  shewing  that  the  bishops  had  the  precedence.  See 
Lyon's  History  of  St.  Andrews — Tr. 


404  HISTORY  OF   THE   COUNCIL  OF  TRENT.  Book  V, 

that  the  cardinal  curates  of  the  Bishop  of  Rome  had  risen  in  im- 
portance at  the  same  time  and  in  the  same  proportion  with  him. 
The  Bishop  of  Rome  was  pope,  fully  pope,  long  before  the  car- 
dinals were  cardinals  in  the  sense  attached  in  later  times  to  that 
title.  But  their  rise,  though  slower,  did  not  the  less  follow  the 
same  course.  We  see  them  gradually  separating  themselves 
from  the  rest  of  the  clergy.  They  continued  to  be  reckoned  as 
attached  each  to  a  parish  in  Home,  but  they  no  longer  were  so. 
Beyond  Rome  they  had  honours  paid  to  them  at  first  only  when 
they  arrived  as  the  pope's  envoys  and  representatives ;  ere  long 
we  shall  find  that  it  was  in  virtue  of  their  mere  title  that  they 
took  the  precedence  of  bishops,  of  kings'  ministers,  and  some- 
times of  kings  themselves.  Notwithstanding,  it  was  only  in 
1059  that  Nicholas  III.  made  them  sole  electors  of  the  sovereign 
pontiff;  the  clergy  and  the  people  retaining  their  right  of  ratify- 
ing the  election.  A  hundred  and  twenty  years  allerwards,  in 
1179,  Alexander  III.  abolished  this  last  restriction,  and  the  elec- 
tion of  the  popes  is  now  entirely  in  the  hands  of  the  cardinals. 

Thus  it  was  not  four  hundred  years  since  the  cardinalate  had 
been  definitively  constituted  ;  it  was  not  a  hundred  and  fifty  since 
the  Council  of  Constance  had  energetically  recalled  the  Church's 
ancient  right  to  elect  its  sovereign.  And  this  last  council  had 
been  at  least  led  to  it  by  circumstances ;  but  if  the  Council  of 
Trent,  in  full  peace,  had  taken  it  into  its  head  to  do  as  much,  it 
would  have  proved  the  ruin  of  the  cardinals,  and  in  many  re- 
spects of  the  popedom  itself.  Hence  the  mental  throes  of  the 
pope  ;  hence  a  new  source  of  mutual  distrust  and  animosity  be- 
tween the  prelates  of  the  tAVo  parties. 

The  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  proved  impenetrable,  at  least  he 
believed  himself  to  be  so,  for  one  of  the  doctors  in  his  suite,  of 
the  name  of  Hugon — secretly  sold  to  the  pope,  kept  the  legates 
informed  of  his  minutest  actions,  which,  to  say  the  truth,  rarely 
betrayed  all  that  was  passing  in  his  thoughts.^  The  day  on 
which  the  king's  letter  was  read  at  the  general  meeting  he  found 
another  opportunity  of  making  a  long  speech,  without  shocking, 
but  also  without  satisfying  anybody.  He  dwelt  particularly  on 
the  calamities  of  the  kingdom,  of  which  he  gave  but  too  truthful 
a  picture.  Eveiywhere  mortal  feuds,  outrage,  pillage,  and  mur- 
der prevailed ;  everywhere,  among  Roman  Catholics  as  well  as 
Protestants,  the  royal  authority  was  contemned.  "  To  whom," 
he  added,  "  must  we  attribute  these  evils  ?    To  heresy,  no  doubt, 

^  The  Spaniards  also  had  a  spy  observing  them  in  the  person  of  one 
of  tlieir  coimtrynien,  Sebastiani,  bishop  of  Patti,  in  Sicily.  All  these 
details  are  taken  from  Yisconti'e  Letters. 


Chap.  V.  1502.  SPEECH   OF   1)1     FKRRIKR,  4()D 

but  not  to  heresy  alone.  For  myself,  I  am  ready,  if  necessary, 
to  say  with  Jonah,  as  already  adduced  by  the  legates  of  the 
Holy  See  at  the  first  opening  of  the  council,  '  Cast  me  forth 
into  the  sea,  for  I  know  that  for  my  sake  this  great  tempest  is 
upon  you  !'  "  Alluding,  probably,  to  the  three  hundred  thou- 
sand crowns  of  benefices  ;  but  he  proposed  nothing,  concluded 
)iothing. 

The  conclusion  was  yet  to  come,  and  the  task  of  drawing  it 
had  been  committed  to  the  second  ambassador,  Du  Ferrier.  The 
legates  had  started  difliculties  to  his  being  permitted  to  speak. 
The  cardinal  had  almost  had  to  demand  it,  so  as  to  make  himself 
responsible  for  all  that  he  was  to  say,  if  not  for  his  words  at  least 
for  the  general  bearing  of  his  ideas.  But  ideas  and  words  were 
alike  warm  and  pointed.  "  The  king  might  have  appeased  all 
the  disorders  that  afflict  France  in  three  days  had  he  so  desired, 
by  convoking  a  national  council,  or  by  making,  by  his  own 
authority,  the  concessions  called  for.  As  the  eldest  son  of  the 
Church,  he  has  preferred  not  obtaining  them  for  himself  except 
through  the  Church  ;  but  should  they  be  refused,  he  should  cer- 
tainly feel  compelled  to  provide  himself  a  remedy  for  hffe  king- 
dom. After  all,  what  was  the  amount  of  his  demand  ?  N othinir 
that  IS  not  to  be  found  in  the  Scriptures,  the  Fathers,  and  in  the 
canons  of  the  first  councils ;  nothing  but  what  long  subsisted  in 
the  bosom  of  the  Church,  without  preventing  it  from  expanding 
itself  before  God  and  men.  When  Josias  wished  to  appease  the 
troubles  of  the  Jews,  and  to  recall  them  to  the  religion  of  their 
fathers,  he  found  only  one  means,  but  that  was  the  best  of  all ; 
he  had  only  to  cause  the  book  of  the  law,  after  its  long  conceal- 
ment by  the  malice  of  men,  to  be  read  and  observed.^  And  if 
you  ask  why  France  is  suffering  from  this  surfeit  of  disorders 
and  evils,  the  only  answer  that  can  be  made  to  you  is  that  of 
Jehu  to  Joram — '  What  peace  so  long  as' — You  know  what, 
added  Du  Ferrier,  interrupting  him  as  he  spoke  ;-  and  if  refor- 
mation does  not  come  from  you,  in  vain  should  all  the  princes 
come  to  the  aid  of  France.  As  for  all  who  shall  perish,  even 
although  it  be  by  their  own  iniquities  that  they  have  brought 
ruin  on  themselves,  you,  and  you  alone,  will  be  held  responsible 
for  their  blood." 

Some  of  these  shafts  were  more  severe  than  just.     At  the 

^  Pallavicini,  ordinarily  so  prolix,  has  avoided  reproducing  tliese  de- 
tails. "  Du  Ferrier,"  says  he,  "  explained  his  meaning  by  an  ingenious 
application  of  several  examples  from  the  Sacred  Books." — Book  xix. 
eh.  iv. 

^  "So  long  as  the  whoredoms  of  thy  mother  and  her  witchci'afts  are 
so  manv." — J  Kiii-r-^  i\-.  22. 


406  HISTORY   OF  THE  COUNCIL   OF    TREiNT.  Book  V. 

point  to  which  things  had  come,  the  council  could  do  nothing 
towards  appeasing  the  wars  of  religion  short  of  declaring  itself 
Protestant.  Nevertheless,  taking  a  higher  view,  this  very  in- 
justice was  just.  The  council  could  do  nothing ;  but  it  was  the 
organ  and  representative  of  that  Church  which  had  for  ages  had 
it  in  its  power  to  do  all,  and  yet  had  made  use  of  its  power  only 
to  disfigure  Christianity,  and  to  bury  under  the  commandments 
of  men  those  laws  which  alone  were  capable  of  bridling  the  pas- 
sions of  kings  and  peoples.  An  aged  and  infirm  mother  must 
plead  in  vain  her  present  inability  to  repress  the  disorders  of  her 
son ;  if  she  was  the  original  cause  of  those  disorders,  there  can 
be  no  injustice  in  holding  her  responsible  for  them.  Yes,  Du 
Ferrier  was  in  the  right.  For  all  the  blood  that  had  flowed  in 
France,  all  that  was  yet  to  flow  there,  the  Church  was  responsible, 
and  doubly  responsible  ;  responsible  as  the  mother  of  all  those 
errors  and  of  all  those  abuses  which  had  provoked  the  Reforma- 
tion ;  responsible  also  as  having  given  but  too  much  sanction, 
by  her  acts  of  violence,  for  those  terrible  reprisals  exercised  by 
the  Reformation  in  some  of  the  places  where  it  had  the  upper 
hand.  '  And  why  speak  we  here  of  the  acts  of  vengeance  done 
by  the  Reformation  ?  The  Reformation  had  never  ceased  by  its 
chief  organs  to  preach  order,  the  support  of  government,  and 
peace.  No  Synod,  no  Church  that  we  know  of,  had  ever  decreed 
revenge  for  the  massacre  of  the  Albigenses,  or  any  other  old  and 
bloody  grievance  ;  but  it  Avas  the  Roman  Church,  properly  and 
duly  represented  by  its  chiefs,  its  doctors,  and  its  pious  butchers, 
that  had  decreed  the  destruction  and  taken  upon  itself  the  whole 
responsibility  of  the  extermination  of  those  same  Albigenses. 
What  audacity  in  Roman  Catholic  historians  when  they  com- 
placently register  the  crimes  committed  in  the  name  of  the  Re- 
formation during  those  epochs  of  desolation  and  of  blood.  Not 
an  act  of  violence  to  which  we  could  not,  with  history  in  our 
hand,  oppose  a  thousand  ;  not  a  Roman  Catholic  corpse  which 
we  could  not  cover  with  a  heap  of  the  corpses  of  Albigenses, 
Waldenses,  French  and  German  Protestants,  victims  of  the  In- 
quisition in  Italy,  in  Spain,  in  Belgium,  everywhere,  in  short, 
where  that  frightful  tribunal  succeeded  in  establishing  itself. 
Ah  I  wo,  doubtless,  wo  to  those  who  know  not  how  to  forgive, 
and  to  prove  the  superiority  of  their  faith  by  the  superiority  of 
their  feelings  and  of  their  patience  I  But  wo  also,  wo  above  all 
to  the  Church  that  had  so  long  given,  and  that  was  still  so  long 
to  continue  to  give — not  only  during  epochs  of  tumult  and  violent 
excitement,  but  coldly  and  systematically — the  example  of  all 
atrocities. 

One  knows,  for  the  rest,  by  what  an  abominable  subterfuge 


Chap.  V.  1502.  VICTIMS   OF   THE    INQUISITION.  407 

the  Church  souglit  to  reconcile  its  bloody  persecutions  with  its 
pretended  horror  for  blood.  The  Inquisition  did  not  condemn  to 
death  ;  it  Avas  lield  to  ignore  -what  the  secular  power  did  with 
the  unhappy  victims  whom  it  handed  over  to  it.  It  was  even 
the  custom,  at  first,  to  insert  at  the  end  of  the  sentence  a  formula 
in  which  the  magistrate  was  besought  to  spare  the  culi^rit's  life ; 
an  atrocious  farce  which  people  had  sufficient  sense  of  shame  at 
last  to  suppress,  but  always  continuing  to  abstain  from  asking 
tor  any  punishment  whatever.  Accordingly,  when  the  con- 
demned person  came  to  the  place  appointed  lor  his  punishment, 
it  was  only  by  accident  that  there  happened  to  be  there  a  stake 
and  fagots  and  executioners  to  kindle  them.  The  Church 
washed  her  hands  of  all  this.  Had  she  not  decided  in  1179,' 
that,  without  ceasing  to  reprove  the  shedding  of  blood,  she 
could  accept  the  oflers  of  succour  made  by  the  civil  powers  ?  it 
being  well  understood  that  a  prince  who  should  take  it  into 
his  head,  after  the  Inquisition  had  been  once  established  in  his 
territory,  to  refuse  this  kind  of  succcrur,  might  find  himself  in 
no  enviable  position  ;  the  king  of  Spain  himself  would  have  pe- 
rilled his  crown.  The  number  of  victims  that  perished  under 
the  Spanish  Inquisition  in  the  time  of  the  second  Inquisitor- 
General,  Thomas  of  Torquemada,  has  been  estimated  at  ten  thou- 
sand, that  is,  about  two  per  day  during  seventeen  years.  And 
this  is  not  a  round  number,  put  down  at  random  from  data  more 
or  less  inexact ;  Llorente-  has  given  all  the  details  of  the  calcu- 
lation from  which  he  deduces  this  result.  To  these  ten  thousand 
persons  burnt  alive  we  must  add  about  seven  thousand  burnt  in 
effigy,  that  is  to  say,  who  would  have  perished  like  the  rest  had 
the  Inquisition  had  them  in  its  power.  Torquemada  has  not 
been  canonized,  but  his  predecessor,  Peter  Arbues,  was  made  a 
saint,  and  that,  mark  well,  not  hi  the  fifteenth  century,  at  the 
height  of  the  fanatical  enthusiasm  of  which  he  was  the  minister, 
but  almost  two  hundred  years  after  his  death.  It  was  in  1664, 
in  the  time  of  Pascal,  of  Arnault,  that  Rome  placed  upon  her 
altars  the  ferocious  organizer  of  her  bloody  tribunal. 

On  the  26th  November,  the  day  on  which  it  was  expected 
that  the  session  would  have  been  held,  matters  were  as  little  ripe 
for  it  as  on  the  day  of  the  cardinal's  aiTival. 

All  eyes  continued  to  be  directed  to  him.  Perplexed  and  flat- 
tered by  turns  at  the  part  that  people  persisted  in  giving  him, 
he  was  forced  to  feed  alternately  the  hopes  and  the  lears  of  all. 
He  one  day  held  a  meeting  in  his  hotel,  at  which  the  French 

'  Council  of  Lateran,  canon  xxvii. 

^  History  of  the  Inquisition,  chap.  viii. 


408  HISTORY    OF   THE    COUNCIL   OF  TRExXT.  Book  V. 

bishops  voted  unanimously  for  the  divine  right ;  another  day  he 
renewed  at  the  general  meeting  his  proposals  that  that  point 
should  be  left  undecided.  On  the  1st  of  December,  at  the  close 
of  the  tumult,  occasioned  as  we  have  seen  by  the  boldness  of  the 
bishop  against  whom  the  Italians  declared  anathema,  he  seemed 
desirous  of  giving  a  decided  opinion ;  but  his  speech,  which  began 
with  a  keen  attack  on  those  who  had  thus  attempted  to  restrain 
the  freedom  of  voting,  ended  again  in  vagueness  and  ambiguity. 
There  was  nothing  positive  in  it  but  his  proposing  to  replace  the 
words  divine  right  by  the  simple  statement  that  bishops  are  in- 
stituted by  Jesus  Christ.  However,  the  legates  having  imme- 
diately referred  the  matter  to  Rome,  he  ventured  one  step  farther, 
and  complained  openly  enough  of  that  manner  of  proceeding. 
The  Italians,  on  their  side,  were  daily  more  and  more  out  of 
temper.  Behold,  said  they,  we  are  fallen  out  of  the  Spanish  into 
the  French  disease.  The  French  laughed  at  the  jest,  and  repaid 
it  with  interest ;  but  the  Spaniards,  who  could  not  laugh,  were 
mortally  offended. 

With  all  this  agitation  there  was  mingled  that  of  political 
news,  the  interest  attached  to  which  was  prodigiously  increased 
by  the  presence  of  a  member  of  the  house  of  Guise.  On  the  7th 
of  November,  intelligence  was  brought  of  the  death  of  the  king 
of  Navarre,  and  all  knew  that  that  event  might  call  the  Cardinal 
of  Lorraine  to  the  head  of  affairs  in  France.  He  himself  allow- 
ed it  to  be  well  enough  seen  that  he  regretted  not  being  on  the 
spot,  so  as  more  surely  to  take  up  the  inheritance  of  his  rival. 

In  Germany,  Maximilian,  son  of  the  emperor,  and  already 
king  of  Bohemia,  had  been  elected  king  of  the  Romans  and  heir 
to  the  imperial  dignity.  On  the  occasion  of  his  coronation  (Nov. 
30),  the  emperor  had  had  conferences  v/ith  the  Protestant  princes, 
in  which  he  made  one  attempt  more  to  prevail  on  them  to  ac- 
cept the  council,  and  these  eitbrts  had  only  served,  as  they  had 
always  done,  to  provoke  demands  wdiich  they  well  knew  would 
never  be  granted,  that  in  particular  of  having  all  that  had  been 
done  at  Trent  declared  null  and  void.  Yet,  whether  from  policy 
or  from  secret  sympathy,  the  emperor  had  testified  no  displeas- 
ure. He  even  offered  to  go  in  person  to  Trent  and  to  present 
their  demands,  on  this  sole  condition,  that  they  should  soften 
down  a  little  whatever  was  too  much  calculated  to  wound  the 
feelings  of  the  council  and  of  the  pope. 

While  the  canon  on  the  institution  of  bishops  was  on  its  way 
to  Rome  along  with  the  amendment  proposed  by  the  cardinal, 
the  council  once  more  fell  back  on  the  question  of  residence. 
The  cardinal,  against  the  advice  of  several  French  prelates,  per- 
sisted in  saying  that  it  was  not  necessary  to  mix  it  up  Avith  that 


Chap.  V.  1362.         SUBJECT  OF  RESIDENCE   RESUMED.  409 

of  the  divine  right  of  bishops.  As  for  residence,  in  itself,  he 
seemed  to  be  moderately  desirous  to  see  it  become  obligatory, 
according  to  the  plan  proposed  by  the  legates,  by  means  of  fixed 
rules  and  a  proportionate  penalty  :  but,  himself  a  court  prelate, 
he  had  no  wish  to  condemn  himself  to  vegetate  at  his  diocese 
of  Rheims ;  he  had  the  air  of  one  who  was  little  convinced  of 
the  good  results  to  be  expected  from  a  law  on  this  matter.  He 
thought  that,  on  the  subject  of  residence,  everybody  was  more  or 
less  crazed,  and  that  this  remedy  could  as  little  as  any  other  prove 
a  cure  for  all  evils. 

Notwithstanding  this  half-abandonment  of  the*  main  difficul- 
ties of  the  question,  he  was  disappointed  by  finding  that  none,  or 
almost  none,  sided  with  him  ;  he  further  knew  that  this  began 
to  be  a  subject  of  remark,  people  asking  if  this  was  the  omnipo- 
tent influence  that  he  had  flattered  himself  he  w^as  about  to  ex- 
ercise. The  French  disease  had  quickly  been  replaced  by  the 
Spa)iish ;  that  is  to  say,  the  Spanish  prelates  had  again  put 
themselves  at  the  head  of  the  opposition,  a  post  at  which  it  is 
easy  to  draw  attention  to  one's  self  and  to  appear  important. 
To  them,  and  not  to  the  French  party,  those  Italians  who  had 
broken  with  the  papal  party  now  attached  themselves.  Even 
the  French  w'ere  at  times  sufficiently  disposed  to  murmur  against 
their  chief  They  were  angry  at  his  demi-defection  on  the  divine 
right,  and  said  they  saw  Avell  "  that  it  is  not  easy  for  a  cardinal 
to  make  a  good  Frenchman." 

About  the  same  time,  in  fine,  the  legates  having  presented 
the  draft  of  a  decree  on  various  abuses  relative  to  the  sacrament 
of  Orders,  the  Spaniards  complained  that  they  saw  hardly  any  of 
the  things  in  it  which  they  had  all  along  insisted  should  be  taken' 
up  and  examined  ;  and  forthwith  joining  the  German  prelates, 
they  resumed  with  fresh  vigour  the  subject  of  residence  in  the 
view  of  the  divine  right.  Might  we  not  w^ell  say  that  one  might 
suppose  that  he  had  opened  at  a  wrong  page,  and  that  he  w'as 
reading  over  again  what  he  had  more  than  once  read  already  ? 
And  yet  we  could  wish  the  reader  to  remember  that  we  abridge 
to  the  best  of  our  ability,  and  that  we  often  compress  into  a  few 
lines  whole  pages  of  Sarpi  and  Pallavicini.  The  council  had 
never  yet  spoken  more  or  done  less. 

In  the  congregation  of  1  Gth  December,  one  of  the  legates  had 
thought  it  his  duty  to  complain  of  the  extreme  prolixity  of  the 
speeches.  It  was  remarked,  in  fact,  that  several  prelates,  habi- 
tually mute  till  now,  had  taken  a  fancy  for  speaking.  Every 
one  having  had  time,  and  more  than  time,  to  study  the  question 
thoroughly,  there  were  few  who  did  not  deliver  their  opinions 
at  great  length,  even  although  it  was  but  to  repeat  what  twenty 

S 


410  HISTORY    OF   THE   COUiNClL   OF  TRENT.  Book  V. 

others  had  said  ah*eady.  Newly  arrived  members,  little  informed 
of  all  that  had  been  said  and  done,  daily  appeared  on  the  scene, 
and  unintentionally  renewed  discussions  about  matters  of  detail 
which  people  had  every  reason  to  suppose  had  been  finally  closed. 
In  short,  the  council  was  like  a  ship  beaten  upon  by  such  oppos- 
ing winds,  as  to  do  little  more  than  revolve  on  its  om'u  axis,  and 
find  itself  at  night  in  the  same  place  as  in  the  morning.  For  the 
rest,  the  legates  had  no  cause  to  complain.  Lassitude  was  their 
surest  auxiliary.  Already  it  had  many  a  time  saved  the  pope's 
affairs ;  it  alone  could  save  them  still. 

The  pope,  however,  was  impatient  in  good  earnest.  Although 
informed  from  "day  to  day,  and  hour  to  hour,  of  all  that  was 
spoken  at  the  council,  he  could  form  no  correct  idea  of  the  posi- 
tion of  the  legates.  Accustomed  to  reign  himself,  it  appeared  to 
him  that  were  he  in  their  place,  nothing  would  be  easier  than  to 
haA'^e  the  masterv.  His  courtiers  shared  in  the  same  mistake, 
and  even  the  common  people  began  to  fret.  It  was  like  the 
Romans  of  old  murmuring  at  the  delays  of  Fabius.  To  all  the 
other  cares  of  the  legates,  accordingly,  there  was  added  that  of 
having  unceasingly  to  apologize  for  themselves  to  the  pope  and 
their  colleagues  at  Rome.  They  begged  that  at  least  formal 
orders  might  be  sent  them  ;  but,  to  say  the  truth,  the  pope  ibund 
himself  as  much  embarrassed  as  his  ministers. 

He  had  been  thrown  into  the  greatest  uneasiness,  in  particular, 
by  having  to  give  an  opinion  on  the  formula  proposed  by  the 
Cardinal  of  Lorraine.  After  much  hesitation,  on  the  strength  of 
the  consent  of  that  prelate,  he  ventured  to  pronounce  against  the 
doctrine  of  the  divine  right,  or  at  least  against  the  insertion  of 
those  words  in  the  decree.  Availing  himself,  therefore,  of  the 
idea  that  bishops  are  instituted  hj  Jesus  Christ,  an  idea  sufl^i- 
ciently  vague  to  admit  of  a  li<^e  that  it  might  be  turned  in  a 
manner  favourable  to  the  ultramontane  view,^  he  fixed  upon 
three  drafts  of  a  formula,  elaborated  in  a  commission  of  cardi- 
nals. One,  and  the  vaguest  of  these  formulas,  bore  simply  an 
anathema  against  Avhoever  should  say,  that  the  bishops  are  not 
ill  any  manner  instituted  by  Jesus  Christ ;  another,  a  little 
clearer,  but  which  quite  departed  from  the  question,  anathema- 
tized whosoever  should  believe  that  the  einscopal  rank  has  not 
been  instituted  by  Jesus  Christ ;  the  third,  in  fine,  anathema- 
tized whoever  should  teach  that  the  bishops  chosen  by  the  pojoe, 
and  on  whom  he  relieves  himself  of  p)ciyt  of  his  solicitude,  are 
■not  chosen  by  the  Holy  Ghost  for  the  guidance  of  that  j^ortion 

'  By  saying,  with  Laiucz,  that  the  hisJiops,  the  episcopal  body,  exists 
by  divine  riglit,  l>ut  tl)at  each  bishop  individually  exists  only  by  papal 
right. 


Chap.  V.  1603.        I'OK.MULA.'S    I'KUi'OsED    li\:    THE    I'Ol'i:.  411 

of  the  Church  whicJi  is  confided  to  them.     This  last,  the  best 
according  to  the  ItahaiLS,  was  naturally  thought  the  worst  by 
the  others,  for  it  was  cciuivalent  to  the  positive  negation  of  the 
divine  right.      Nothing  would  have  been  easier  than  to  deduce 
from  it,  eventually,  the  universality  of  the  Roman  episcopate,  in 
its  most  absolute  meaning,  to  wit,  that  the  pope  is  the  sole  bishop 
by  divine  institution,  and  that  all  the  rest  exist  only  through 
him.     One  might  even  have  contrived,  in  case  of  need,  to  make 
a  new  prerogative  spring  from  it.     If  the  bishops  chosen  by  the 
pope,  are  chosen  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  this  is,  as  it  were,  a  new 
branch  of  infallibility  accorded  to  the  successor  of  tSt.  Peter. 
How  to  reconcile  this  fact  with  that  other  fact,  that  there  are 
bad  bishops,  is  what  we  do  not  very  clearly  see  ;  but  it  matters 
not.     Is  ultramontanism  ever  embarrassed  about  the  difficulty 
of  reconcihng  papal  infallibility  with  the  existence  of  bad  popes  ? 
About  a  whole  month,  marked  by  several  incidents,  in  regard 
to  which  we  shall  ere  long  have  to  say  a  word  or  two,  had  pass- 
ed in  waiting  for  a  reply  from  the  pope.     The  Christmas  festivi- 
ties, designedly  celebrated  with  extraordinary  pomp,  had  diverted 
the  attention  of  the  prelates  for  a  time  ;  but  the  first  week  of  the 
year  1 563  found  them  impatient,  soured,  and  disheartened. 

The  courier  arrived  at  last.  It  was  now  the  15th  of  January. 
The  council  resumed  its  labours  next  day  ;  and  the  third  formula, 
as  the  most  fully  developed  and  the  clearest,  became  the  princi- 
pal text  of  discussion.  The  efforts  of  the  French  and  Spaniards 
were  mainly  directed  against  that  part  of  the  phrase  in  which 
the  bishops  are  said  to  be  chosen  by  the  pope,  in  order  to  be 
charged  by  him  with  a  part  of  his  solicitude.  The  Latin  ex- 
pression, inixirtcm  solicUudinis,  was  to  be  Ibund  in  respectable 
Latin  authors  ;  but  it  was  remarked  that  it  is  one  thing  to  em- 
ploy certain  words  cursorily,  and  another  to  insert  them  in  the 
rigorous  statement  of  a  system.  Besides,  said  the  opposite  party, 
the  best  proof  that  we  ought  not  to  employ  that  expression  is, 
that  we  are  not  yet  come  to  an  agreement  about  its  n)eaning ; 
and  that,  consequently,  after  we  are  dead  and  gone,  there  will  be 
still  less  agreement  about  it.  The  Italians,  in  fact,  would  have 
it  that  i)i  ixirtcm  soUcitud'uiis  did  not  necessarily  involve  the 
idea  of  the  pope's  universal  episcopate  ;  to  which  the  rest  replied, 
that  if  such  were  not  the  bearing  of  the  words,  this  ought  to  be 
stated  ;  and  that  in  the  decree  itself  a  warranty  ought  to  be 
given  to  those  who  dreaded  its  being  interpreted  in  that  sense. 
Many  offered  to  declare  themselves  satisfied,  if  the  other  party 
would  consent  to  have  it  run  thus — that  bishops  hnvc  hecn  estab- 
lished by  Jesus  Christ,  for  the  purpose  of  being  charged  by  the 
pope  with  a  pHzrt  of  his  solicitude  ;  but  this  middle  course  gave 


412  HISTORY    OF   THE    COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  V. 

little  satisfaction.  And  as  the  question  of  residence  re-appeared 
at  every  turn,  the  two  parties  passing  perpetually  from  one  to 
the  other,  according  as  they  could  see  their  way  to  the  gaining 
of  a  little  ground — the  end  of  January  arrived  without  their 
having  come  to  an  understanding  on  any  one  point. 

The  first  news  of  the  battle  of  Dreux  (17th  December)  had 
been  received  and  celebrated  in  the  council,  as  that  of  a  great 
triumph ;  but  more  detailed  reports  had  modified  this  first  im- 
pression, and  while  the  enthusiasm  of  the  Roman  Catholic  popu- 
lations continued  to  be  maintained  by  means  of  pompous  thanks- 
givings, still  there  was  food  for  bitter  reflections.  Granting  that 
the  Protestant  army  had  been  completely  beaten,  still  it  was 
seen  at  once  to  be  no  small  matter  for  the  E.eformation  to  have 
an  army,  and  an  army,  too,  capable  of  confronting  the  combined 
forces  of  the  king  of  France  and  Phillip  II.  ;  but  although  beaten, 
it  was  known  to  have  lost  fewer  men  than  that  of  the  Roman 
Catholics ;  that  it  was  neither  discouraged  nor  broken  ;  and,  when 
an  army  does  not  consider  itself  defeated,  it  is  not  really  so.  The 
only  positive  result  of  the  battle  of  Dreux,  accordingly,  had  been 
to  raise,  both  in  a  political  and  military  point  of  view,  the  party 
of  the  Reformation  to  the  level  of  that  of  the  king  ;  after  the  two 
armies  had  fought  on  equal  terms,  these  two  great  parties  might 
treat  as  one  power  would  with  another. 

The  pope  had  judged  more  soundly  on  the  subject  than  any 
one  else.  The  ambassador,  De  Lisle,  in  his  letters  to  the  queen, 
complains  of  not  having  succeeded  in  getting  him  to  consider 
this  much  vaunted  triumph  as  a  real  victory.  "  His  holiness," 
says  he,i  "  persevering  firmly  and  with  words  full  of  disdain  and 
discontent,  will  not  allow  me  to  speak  of  your  victory,  and  says 
that  it  has  been  none."  But  patience  I  Only  nine  years  later, 
Rome  was  to  resound  with  cries  of  joy  for  another  victory,  ap- 
parently a  more  complete,  and  a  still  finer  one  in  its  eyes — that 
of  St.  Batholomew's  eve. 

In  the  early  part  of  January,  the  French  ambassadors  had 
presented  to  the  council  a  project  of  reformation,  with  which  the 
cardinal  had  afiected  not  to  meddle,  and  which,  having  ema- 
nated from  the  government,  had  not  in  fact  met  the  approbation 
of  all  the  French  bishops.  The  rights  of  the  pope,  without  be- 
ing attacked  in  theory,  were  touched  in  it  at  more  than  one  point, 
particularly  in  money  matters.  The  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 
articles  established  the  right  to  communicate  in  both  kinds,  and 
to  celebrate  worship  in  the  vulgar  tongue.  The  worship  of  im- 
ages, the  collation  of  benefices,  dispensations  of  every  description, 

'  Letter  of  8th  March,  1563. 


Chap.  V.  ]5C3.        ALARMING   ARTICLES    FROM   FRANCE.  413 

■\vcre  also  made  the  object  of  dispositions,  more  or  less  contrary 
to  the  ideas  and  to  the  interests  of  the  court  of  Eome.  The 
victory  of  Dreiix  began  to  bear  fruits  that  were  not  all  equally 
pleasant.  The  more  it  was  vaunted,  the  more  was  the  French 
government  placed  in  a  position  to  require  concessions  from  the 
council,  and  to  make  concessions  itself  to  the  Protestants. 

The  legates  were  so  alarmed  at  the  eflect  that  this  memoir 
might  have  on  the  old  pope's  health,  for  he  had  been  lor  some 
months  in  a  sickly  and  dying  state,  that  they  lost  no  time  in 
sending  one  of  his  confidential  friends,  the  bishop  of  Viterbo,  to 
soften  the  rudeness  of  the  blow.  But  the  impression  it  produced 
was  terrible  notwithstanding.  The  pope  exclaimed  that  France 
was  in  revolt.  The  bishop  succeeded  in  calming  him,  but  not 
without  difficulty,  by  urging  that  there  were  thirty-lour  articles, 
and  that  the  French  never  surely  could  have  the  idea  of  obtain- 
ing them  all — that  one  might  easily  grant  some,  modify  others, 
and  reject  a  good  many.  In  fine,  and  this  was  the  most  con- 
solatory circumstance,  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  had  secretly 
commissioned  the  bishop  to  make  an  ofier  of  his  services  to  the 
pope,  if  not  for  the  purpose  of  conjuring  the  storm,  at  least  to 
turn  it  in  another  direction,  and  to  moderate  its  violence.  The 
cardinal,  at  bottom,  was  neither  ultramontane  nor  Galilean  ;  his 
religion  was  simply  that  of  an  ambitious  man,  that  is  to  say,  he 
was  ready  to  change  it  any  day. 

The  pope,  accordingly,  began  to  take  up  this  alTair,  about 
which,  nevertheless,  he  was  supposed  to  know  nothing,  seeing  it 
had  been  transmitted,  not  to  him  by  the  ambassador  residing  at 
Rome,  but  to  the  council  by  the  ambassador  residing  at  Trent. 
The  Cardinal  of  Ferrara,  as  legate  in  France,  had  orders  to  reply 
to  the  king,  "  That  there  were  in  fact  good  things  in  those  ar- 
ticles, and  that  the  pope  asked  nothing  better  than  to  see  them 
examined  ;  that  he  could  not  suppose  that  any  one,  least  of  all 
the  most  Christian  king,  could  intend  to  deprive  the  Holy  ^ee  of 
any  portion  whatever  of  the  powers  which  it  holds  from  Jesus 
Christ ;  that  if  such  or  such  church-dues  were  burthenscme  to 
the  kingdom,  one  might  proceed  to  lighten  them  amicably ;  that, 
besides,  there  were  things  in  the  memorial  which  were  little  fit 
to  be  treated  of  in  a  council."  One  of  the  reasons,  the  pope  add- 
ed, on  account  of  which  these  articles  did  not  all  equally  please 
him,  was,  that  some  were  not  less  contrary  to  the  king's  author- 
ity than  to  that  of  the  pope.  Slightly  dependent  on  the  Holy  See, 
the  bishops  would  find  facilities  for  being  still  less  dependent  on 
the  king.  Finally,  all  these  observations  were  to  be  supported  by 
the  Cardinal  of  Ferrara,  with  a  new  advance  of  forty  thousand 
crowns  on  the  hundred  thousand  previously  ofTered  as  a  gift. 


414  HISTORY   OF  THE    COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  V. 

These  money  presents,  openly  made  by  one  prince  to  another, 
offered  and  accepted  without  the  smallest  shame,  however  inade- 
quate the  sum  might  be  to  the  greatness  and  opulence  of"  the  two 
parties,  form  one  of  the  curious  traits  that  mark  the  political 
history  of  that  age.  It  seemed  generally  admitted  that  a  full 
purse  was  as  good  an  argument  as  any  other,  and  that  one  had 
no  more  reason  to  blush  at  receiving  a  good  round  sum  than  at 
admitting  the  conclusiveness  of  a  good  sound  argument.  But  if 
merely  curious  in  political  affairs,  in  religious  it  was  certainly 
something  more. 

Nothing  being  ready  for  the  session,  it  was  found  necessary 
to  m'oroofuo  it  aorain.  Although  it  was  but  the  commencement 
of  February,  the  legates  proposed  to  put  it  on  till  Easter.  This 
suggestion  was  strongly  opposed ;  all  the  more  as  the  legates 
talked  of  taking  up  the  article  of  marriage,  and  it  was  thought 
strange  that  new  matters  for  discussion  should  be  sought  lor, 
when  they  could  not  make  an  end  of  the  old.  Many  wanted 
the  vote  to  be  taken  on  all  the  points  that  had  been  sufficiently 
examined  ;  but  the  Italians,  though  sure  of  victory,  dreaded  ob- 
taining it  in  this  way.  The  Cardinal  of  Lorraine,  while  he  con- 
sented to  delay,  had  the  air  of  one  who  lent  himself  to  that  course 
only  from  complaisance  ;  but  he  had  his  own  reasons  for  not  be- 
ing displeased  at  it.  He  projected  making  a  journey  to  the  em- 
peror, and  the  affairs  of  France  were  still  in  too  entangled  a  state 
to  admit  of  his  seeing  clearly  what  it  was  best  to  do  in  the  inter- 
est of  his  party. 

This  journey,  which  had  been  long  talked  of,  was  a  subject  of 
much  uneasiness.  It  was  thought  certain  that  he  had  in  viev/, 
besides  the  political  affairs  of  France  and  Germany,  a  closer 
union  between  the  French  and  Germans  in  the  affairs  of  the 
council  ;  the  emperor,  and  still  more  his  son,  were  too  much  dis- 
affected to  admit  of  the  cardinal  returning  from  them  without 
bringing  projects  with  him  of  a  more  or  less  hostile  nature.  Ru- 
mours were  afloat  respecting  certain  questions  which  the  emperor 
had  submitted  to  the  examination  of  his  own  divines,  and  which 
were  not  the  most  encouraging,  among  others  : — 

If  the  pope  had  good  grounds  for  his  desiring  that  the  legates 
alone  should  have  the  right  to  propose,  and  if  the  clause  pro- 
ponentibus  legatis  ought  not  to  be  expunged  as  contrary  to  the 
authority  and  the  liberty  of  the  council ; 

If  the  pope  could  transfer  it  to  another  place,  or  dissolve  it, 
M'ithout  the  concurrence  of  the  secular  princes  ; 

If  means  might  not  be  found  for  making  the  bishops  [it  the 
council  independent,  as  well  on  the  side  of  the  pope  as  on  that 
of  their  respective  civil  rulers  ; 


CJIAI-.  V.  15C3      CARDINAL  OF  LORRAINE  VISITS  THE  EMPEROR,       415 

If  tlic-re  was  no  possibility  of  protecting  the  nninnrity  from  the 
violence  or  intrigues  of  the  nnijority  ; 

If,  in  the  event  of  the  pope  Inippening  to  die,  the  next  election 
would  belong  to  the  council ; 

And  other  points,  among  -which  public  rumour  placed  tiomc 
that  were  still  more  menacine:. 

The  cardinal  left  Trent  about  the  middle  of  February,  after 
having  made  the  legates  promise  that  the  question  of  marriage 
should  not  be  agitated  in  his  absence.  Here  there  was  new 
matter  of  uneasiness.  He  had,  it  would  appear,  views  on  this 
point  which  might  not  be  those  of  the  majority.  He  remained 
five  days  at  Inspruck.  Every  eQbrt  was  made  to  penetrate  the 
secret  of  his  conferences  with  the  emperor  ;  but  all  that  could 
be  known  was,  that  he  remained  every  day  at  least  two  hours 
with  him  and  his  son.  On  the  cardinal's  return  no  one  was  a 
whit  wiser.  He  merely  reported  to  the  legates  that  the  em- 
peror had  broken  out,  when  he  was  with  him,  into  bitter  com- 
plaints that  not  one  of  his  demands  had  been  so  much  as  pro- 
posed for  dehberation  ;  that  he  had  been  very  hot  on  the  subject, 
insisting  that  the  assembly  had  done  nothing  yet  of  any  import- 
ance, that  the  pope  was  deceived  either  by  the  council  sitting 
at  Trent,  or  by  Idsoion  council  sitting  at  Rome,  (Sec,  ho,}  The 
cardinal  added  that  he  had  done  his  best  to  soften  the  emperor  ; 
but,  says  the  historian,  "  he  said  all  this  in  the  tone  of  a  man 
who  not  only  relates  the  sentiments  of  another,  but  desires  also 
to  add  weight  to  his  own  by  giving  them  the  support  of  a  supe- 
rior authority.''  On  the  following  da}'s  he  spoke  almost  openly 
of  the  emperor  as  an  ally,  a  friend ;  he  went  so  far  as  to  say, 
that  if  things  were  to  continue  in  the  same  state,  some  great 
scandal  would  be  the  result.  This  scandal  was  evidently  that  the 
princes  would  decree,  of  their  own  authority,  what  they  should 
have  failed  to  obtain  from  the  council  or  from  the  pope.  Thus 
agitation  and  mutual  distrust  went  on  increasing. 

In  fine,  while  the  cardinal  of  Ferrara  was  in  France  commu- 
nicating the  ambiguous  answer  made  by  the  pope  to  the  thirty- 
four  articles  which  had  thrown  Rome  into  a  fright,  the  French 
ambassadors,  having  communicated  to  the  council,  by  a  letter 
from  the  king,  the  official  news  of  the  battle  of  Dreux,  took  that 
occasion  to  ask  what  had  been  done  with  those  articles,  and  what 
it  was  proposed  to  do  with  them.  Then,  with  a  malicious  show 
of  candour  and  simplicity,  "  If  any  are  surprised,"  said  Du  Fer- 
rier,  "  that  we  have  stuck  to  these  points  rather  than  to  others, 
and  that  we  have  omitted  so  many  things  of  importance,  we 
would  reply  that  we  have  been  desirous  to  begin  with  lighter 

^  Pallavicini,  Book  xx.  ch.  v. 


416  HISTORY  OF  THE   COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  V. 

matters,  with  the  view  of  clearing  the  way,  and  thus  faciHtating 
our  reaching  the  most  important.  Think  not,"  he  added,  "  that 
Christians  are  now  what  they  were  fifty  or  a  hundred  years  ago. 
If  there  are  many  still  who  want  nothing  better  than  to  remain 
Catholics,  those  very  persons  are  already  too  much  awakened  to 
abstain  from  judging,  according  to  Scripture,  whatever  you  shall 
have  presented  to  them  as  what  they  have  to  believe  and  to  do." 
Why,  then,  did  such  persons,  and  he  himself  as  the  first  of  them, 
put  off  any  longer  declaring  themselves  Protestants  ?  Had  not 
the  council  decreed  enough  of  things  contrary  to  Scripture,  to 
warrant  their  ceasing  to  wait  for  more  ? 


CHAPTER    VI. 

(1563.) 
DISCUSSIONS   ON    MARRIAGE,    DIVORCE,    AND    CELIBACY. 

Marriage — Is  it  a  sacrament — Scriptural  and  other  objections — In  giv- 
ing it  this  title,  has  it  been  really  rendered  more  sacred — The  Church's 
despotism — Objections  of  jurisconsults — Indissolubility  of  marriage 
— Except  it  be  for  adultery — Divorce — It  maybe  made  a  law,  but  not 
a  dogma — Weakness  of  the  arguments  in  favour  of  the  decree — Other 
difficulties — Civil  elements  of  marriage — Quibbles — If  marriage  be  a 
sacrament,  the  civil  power  has  nothing  to  do  with  it — The  march  of 
ideas — Side  by  side  with  so  much  strictness,  unheard  of  dissoluteness 
of  morals — Abuse  of  dispensations — Sophisms  of  the  ultramontanists. 
Can  a  Roman  Catholic  treat  them  with  contempt? — The  celibate — 
Can  we  examine  whether  it  be,  in  itself,  more  holy  than  marriage — 
Monks  and  the  monastic  life — Suicide — Convents  in  poetry — Con- 
vents in  reality — Forced  vows — Scruples  of  jurisconsults — Celibate 
of  priests — Right  and  abuses — The  celibate  and  the  Reformation — 
The  Jewish  law — The  Christian  law — St.  Peter — Ideal  and  realities 
— What  the  clergy  are  where  it  prevails — Why  the  celibacy  of  the 
priests  is  persisted  in. 

The  debates  on  the  doctrine  of  marriage,  after  being  delayed 
for  some  days  by  a  dispute  about  precedence  among  the  divines, 
were  opened  in  the  course  of  February.  Eight  articles,  not 
necessary  to  enumerate,  had  been  presented  by  the  legates.  Let 
us  confine  ourselves  to  the  three  points  on  which  tlie  discussion 
was  chiefly  to  run  ;  marriage  in  itself ;  marriage  as  a  tie  ;  and 
celibacy. 

Is  marriage  a  sacrament  ?  It  is  easy  to  affirm  this,  but  not 
so  easy  to  prove  it.  This  the  divines  sufficiently  admitted,  if 
not  in  set  terms,  at  least  by  the  length  and  the  embarrassment 
shewn  in  their  speeches. 

Let  us  first  recall,  to  refresh  our  memories,  what  we  have  al- 
ready said  or  suggested  elsewhere.  That  it  seems  little  agree- 
able to  the  very  notion  of  a  sacrament  to  give  that  name  to  what 
is  found  in  all  religions ;  that  in  order  to  find  ancient  Christian 
authors  who  make  a  sacrament  of  marriage,  we  must  go  back  to 
times  when  the  word  sacrament  was  applied  to  all  religious  acts 


418  HISTORY   OF  THE   COUNCIL  OF  TRENT.  Book  V. 

whatever  ;^  that  Scripture,  in  fine,  nowhere  speaks  of  it  as  it 
would  be  natural  for  it  to  speak  of  an  act  pertaining  to  the  new 
law,  and  fellow,  so  to  speak,  of  the  supper  and  of  baptism.  If 
this  last,  although  in  use  previous  to  Christian  times,  has  become 
a  sacrament,  it  is  because  Jesus  Christ  positively  appropriated  it, 
and  made  it  as  it  were  the  seal  by  which  his  disciples  were  to  be 
marked,  when  he  said,  "  Go,  therefore,  and  teach  all  nations,  bap- 
tizing them  in  the  name  of  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy 
Ghost."  We  find  nothing  of  this  sort  respecting  marriage.  The 
jN"ew  Testament  speaks  of  it  only  in  a  moral  point  of  view.  It 
takes  it  up  as  a  fact ;  it  purifies  and  elevates  it ;  but  nowhere  do 
we  see  there  either  institution  of  the  fact,  or  modification  in  its 
essence.  Thus,  religion  sanctifies,  but  does  not  create  it ;  the 
Church  proclaims  it,  and  blesses  it ;  but  it  would  exist  without 
her,  and  has  really  existed,  at  some  epochs,  among  pagans,  as 
much  respected  and  as  sacred  in  men's  eyes  as  ever  it  was  among 
Christians. 2  But,  give  what  definition  you  please  to  the  term 
sacrament  in  general,  never  would  it  logically  apply  to  an  act 
where  the  part  taken  by  religion  and  the  Church  is  a  mere  in- 
tervention which,  strictly  speaking,  might  be  dispensed  with. 
Every  act,  every  transaction  on  which  you  would  call  for  God's 
blessing  and  the  Church's  prayers,  would,  by  parity  of  reason, 
be  a  sacrament. 

AVhat,  besides,  would  j^ou  make  of  a  sacrament,  the  true  and 
immediate  object  of  which  has  nothing  religious  about  it,  and 
does  not  even  in  any  respect  touch  upon  religion  ?  Though  the 
marriage  state,  when  blessed  by  godliness,  becomes  an  abundant 
source  of  sanctification  and  salvation,  this,  after  all,  is  only  an 
occasional  result.  The  conjugal  miion  may  have  none  of  those 
blessed  effects,  yet  not  the  less  would  it  continue  to  subsist. 
Marriage  is  not,  therefore,  of  itself  a  religious  act ;  it  exists  in- 
dependently of  religions ;  it  is,  therefore,  essentially  difierent 
from  the  supper  and  baptism,  and  all  those  other  sacraments,  if 
people  will  insist  on  there  being  others,  since  these,  if  you  ab- 
stract from  them  their  religious  meaning,  signify  nothing,  and 
are  absolutely  nothing. 

Let  us  take  up  for  a  moment,  one  of  the  most  favourite  ideas 
of  the  Roman  Church,  that  of  the  superiority  of  celibacy  to  the 

^  "  Marriage  is,  according  to  St.  PauVs  expression,  a  great  sacrament 
in  Christ  and  in  the  Church." — Encyclical  Letter  of  1832. 

"  A  great  mystery,'"  says  the  Greek  text.  We  have  already  had  an 
example  of  this  same  plaj'  lapon  words,  (Book  ii.)  Cardinal  Cajetan 
admits  the  falsification.  '"^Non  habes  ex  hoc  loco,  prudens  lector,  a 
Paulo,  eonjugium  esse  saeramentum.  Non  enim  dixit  esse  sacramentum, 
sed  mj-sterium." 

^  For  example,  nt  Eome  in  the  early  times  of  the  republic. 


y 


Chap.  VI.  i:,t;;<.  MAUHIAGE    NOT    A    SACRAMENT.  *110 

married  state,  and  forthwith  a  new  ohjcction  occurs.  All  the 
other  sacraments  have,  or  are  reputed  to  have,  for  their  object, 
the  exercise  of  a  salutary  influence  on  the  soul,  and  the  increase 
of  its  spirituality  ;  but  here  the  case  must  be  quite  otheiwise.  If 
the  unmarried  be  a  holier  state  than  the  married,  and  marringe 
nevertheless  a  sacrament — we  have  a  sacrament  immediately 
resulting  in  the  transference  of  the  soul  into  an  inferior  condition, 
in  its  being  bereft  of  part  of  its  spirituality,  and,  in  fine,  in  its 
having  certain  sources  of  salvation  closed  against  it.  The  Roman 
Church  admits  marriage  only  as  a  necessary  evil ;  can  it  be 
thought  logical,  then,  to  view  that  as  a  sacrament  which  creates 
an  evil?  And  if  it  be  replied  that  it  is  natural  for  religion  to 
lay  hold  of  this  evil  for  the  purpose  of  lessening  it,  and  drawing 
forth  all  tlie  good  that  can  be  in  it,  this  only  takes  us  back  to  the 
objection  stated  above,  "  That  there  can  be  no  sacrament  where 
religion  docs  no  more  than  bless  what  Avould  exist  beyond  its 
sphere  and  without  it." 

For  the  rest,  it  were  much  to  be  desired  that  the  Eoman 
Church  had  never  taught  anything  more  dangerous.  In  placing 
marriage  in  the  number  of  the  sacraments,  a  good  object  may 
have  been  aimed  at,  that  of  enhancing  its  sacrcdness  and  invio- 
lability. ATe  might  only  inquire,  then,  if  this  has  been  the  con- 
sequence, and  if  the  conjugal  tie  be  really  held  more  sacred  in 
Italy  than  in  England,  in  France  than  in  the  United  States,  at 
Rome  than  at  Geneva,  and  we  might  fearlessly  look  for  the  an- 
swer that  every  enlightened  traveller,  and  every  candid  Roman 
Catholic  would  be  sure  to  give. 

But  if  the  good  results  are  doubtful,  it  is  not  so  with  the  bad. 
On  becoming  a  sacrament,  marriage  passed  into  the  domain  of 
the  Church  ■}  the  Church  alone  had  from  that  tim.e  forth  the 
right  to  lay  down  its  conditions.  This  right  has  proved  an  ex- 
haustless  source  of  influence  over  individuals,  families,  kings,  and 
nations.  Civil  society  thus  became  bound  to  the  Church  by 
fibres  that  rooted  themseh^s  profoundly  in  all  the  interests  and 
afibctions  of  mankind.  And  what  a  strain  has  been  put  upon 
those  fibres  I  AThat  delight  has  been  felt  in  multiplying  difficul- 
ties and  impediments  of  all  sorts  !  At  tire  commencement  of  the 
thirteenth  century,  the  bar  to  marriage  constituted  by  relation- 
ship, was  extended  to  the  seventh  degree  ;  there  were  no  ties  of 
relationship,  even  down  to  adulterous  ones,  that  did  not  consti- 
tute a  sort  of  kin  in  which  the  interdiction  of  marriage  extended 
to  the  fourth  degree.  In  the  midst  of  this  maze  of  impediments 
there  was  hardly  a  marriage  which  the  Church  might  not  pos- 

'  "Marriasre,  fonninc;  a  part  of  holv  things,  is  consequontlv  subject 
to  ilie  Church.''— T!ie  Pouo's  Encvelionl  1  ctfcr  uf  18G2. 


420  HISTORY  OF   THE   COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  V. 

sibly  prevent,  were  slie  in  the  least  desirous  to  apply  her  rules 
rigorously ;  and  in  that  case  the  only  resource  was  to  petition 
and  to  pay.  Often,  too,  impediments  coming  to  be  discovered 
after  the  marriage  was  over,  there  had  to  be  fresh  petitions  and 
fresh  outlay,  if  people  wished  to  be  married  according  to  the 
rules.  Spouses  united  for  twenty  years  might  still  feel  not  quite 
sure  that  their  marriage  was  valid,  and  their  children  legitimate ; 
the  latter,  even  after  the  death  of  their  parents,  might  some  fine 
day  hear  of  their  being  declared  bastards. 

From  the  times  of  the  Council  of  Trent,  it  has  not  been  quite 
dius.  Universal  complaints  had  constrained  Innocent  III.  to  re- 
duce to  four  the  normal  number  of  the  degrees  ;  use  had,  more- 
over, given  the  force  of  law  to  divers  mitigations  in  detail,  and 
what  remained  too  oppressive  in  the  law  was  left  to  be  alleviated 
by  dispensations.  Notwithstanding  this  there  prevailed  a  gen- 
eral feeling  of  uneasiness.  Civil  society  strongly  tending  towards 
its  own  emancipation,  its  attention  was  incessantly  directed  to 
the  most  delicate  of  the  points  of  contact  between  the  spiritual 
and  the  temporal.  The  Reformation  had  called  upon  the  Church 
of  Rome  to  say  by  what  rights  she  alleged  that  she  alone  was 
competent  to  lay  down  laws  on  the  subject  of  marriage,  and  the 
Church  of  Rome,  beyond  the  argument  of  authority,  which  people 
would  no  longer  admit,  had  not  much  to  reply.  Many  Roman 
Catholic  jurisconsults  had,  on  this  point,  come  to  entertain  ideas 
nearly  approaching  those  of  the  Protestants.  In  France,  in  par- 
ticular, people  began  to  see  that  marriage  was  an  essentially  civil 
act,  which  religion  consecrated,  but  did  not  create.  It  was  per- 
fectly understood  that  the  Church  retained  the  power  of  determ- 
ining in  what  cases  the  priest  was  to  grant  or  refuse  that  conse- 
cration ;  but  it  began  generally  to  be  understood  that,  as  respects 
society,  it  is  an  accessor}^  In  fine,  the  civil  power  began  to  be- 
lieve that  it  too  had  the  right  to  fix  within  its  own  sphere  the 
conditions  beyond  which  the  Church  could  not  proceed  to  cele- 
brate a  marriage.  Such  was  the  commencement  of  that  system, 
which,  after  remaining  long  in  abeyance,  was  to  become,  as  it  is 
at  this  day,  that  of  France  and  many  other  states. 

These  discussions  on  the  essence  of  marriage,  necessarily  led 
to  the  next  question  of  those  above  indicated,  namely,  that  of 
marriage  viewed  as  a  tie. 

This  tie  the  Roman  Church  had  pronounced  indissoluble. 
Viewing  the  matter  in  its  social  and  moral  aspects,  weighty  rea- 
sons may  be  alleged  in  favour  of  this  system ;  but  the  question 
was,  how  do  we  know  that  the  Church  had  a  right  to  establish 
it  ?  Now,  with  the  Scriptures  before  us,  this  cannot  be  main- 
tained, least  of  all  if  Ave  are  to  hold  that  marriage  is  a  sacra- 


\ 


\ 


/ 


CiiAr.  VI.  15()3.  IS   MARRIAGE    INDISSOLUULE!  llil 

meiit.  For  a  sacrament — this  tlie  Church  has  always  main- 
tained— is  hcyond  lier  power  She  may  regulate  the  use  oi"  it, 
she  may  modify  its  accessories,  but  its  essence  she  camiot  modify. 
If  marriage  be  a  sacrament,  and  Jesus  Christ  nevertheless  did 
not  regard  it  as  indissoluble,  its  very  quality  of  sacrament  de- 
prives all  parties  whatsoever  of  any  power  of  changing  it.  As- 
suming this,  wdiat  do  we  fhid  said  of  it  by  Jesus  Christ?  "  It 
hath  been  said  by  them  of  old  time.  Let  him  give  her  a  writing 
of  divorcement ;  but  I  say  nnto  you,  that  whosoever  shall  put 
away  his  wife,  save  for  the  cause  of  fornication,  causcth  her  to 
commit  adultery  ;  and  w^hosoever  shall  marry  her  that  is  di- 
vorced, committeth  adultery."^  Whosoever  shall  marry  that 
woman.  It  w^as  permitted  then  to  marry  a  repudiated  woman. 
Does  Jesus  Christ  forbid  it?  By  no  means.  He  confines  him- 
self to  saying,  that  if  the  repudiation  has  not  had  a  valid  motive, 
the  new  marriage  shall  not  be  legitimate.  It  would  be  so  then 
if  the  repudiation  has  been  so.  Will  any  one  maintain  that  had 
he  wished  to  teach  its  indissolubility,  he  would  not  have  done  so 
at  this  place  ?  Or  that  what  our  Lord  said  was  from  a  desire 
to  defer  to  the  ideas  and  the  usages  of  the  Jews  ?  We  cannot 
conceive  that  the  Son  of  God  could  carry  compliance  so  far  as 
to  grant,  even  provisionally,  what  would  have  been  contrary 
to  God's  will,  and  to  the  essence  of  the  sacraments  under  the 
new  law. 

Here  we  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  question,  whether  cer- 
tain states  have  done  well  or  ill  in  sanctioning  divorce  in  other 
cases  besides  that  of  adultery.  It  is  enough  to  have  demon- 
stated  that  the  absolute  prohibition  of  divorce,  cannot  with  any 
shew  of  reason  be  invested  with  the  authority  of  a  law  of  God. 
It  is  hardly  worth  while  to  refute  the  charges  which  have  on 
this  score  been  levelled  at  the  Reformation.  Some  authors  will 
have  it  that  this  impossibility  of  dissolving  marriage  cannot  be 
taken  off  without  opening  the  door  to  the  most  scandalous  disor- 
ders. Happily  here,  as  in  the  sacramental  question,  we  have 
only  to  appeal  to  facts.  Where  are  those  disorders  to  be  found  ? 
Shall  we  be  told  of  many  cases  where  the  prospect  of  divorce  has 
loosened  ties  which,  but  for  that  would  not  have  been  loosened  ? 
It  is  of  course  understood  that  we  do  not  speak  of  that  brutish 
divorce  which  history  shews  as  in  use  among  some  nations,  but 
of  divorce  legal  and  solemn,  such,  in  a  word,  as  we  find  in  all 
the  Protestant  countries  that  have  admitted  it.  There,  encom- 
passed with  all  the  civil  restrictions  which  morality  and  social 
order  demand,  it  never  occurs  wdthout  formalities  and  delays 
such  as  are  tantamount  to  its  being  declared  beforehand  impos- 
^  Gospel  r.ccording  to  St.  Matthew,  eh.  v. 


422  HISTORY  OF   THE  COUNCIL    OF  TRENT.  Book  V. 

sible,  if  it  shall  be  found  in  the  least  that  the  motives  that  have 
led  to  its  being  asked  are  insufficient  or  of  a  temporary  character. 
Hardly  will  there  be  found  a  case  to  be  adduced,  at  distant  in- 
tervals, in  Avhich,  upon  the  Avliole,  more  good  has  not  been  done 
than  evil ;  and  how  many  cases,  on  the  contrary,  do  we  see  oc- 
cur, in  Avhich  the  indissolubility  of  the  marriage  produces  more 
evil  than  good  ?  Next,  we  repeat,  this  is  not  the  question.  Al- 
though the  permission  of  divorce  had  only  untoward  results,  the 
Church  has  no  right  to  interdict  it  as  long  as  it  remains  uninter- 
dicted  by  Scripture.  All  very  well  to  dissuade  people  frcm  it ; 
to  do  all  that  is  humanly  possible  to  prevent,  in  each  several 
case,  the  spouses  from  coming  to  that  deplorable  extremity  is  a 
positive  duty  ;  nothing  better  than  that  the  civil  law  should  be 
asked  to  be  severe  in  repressing  it,  to  require  minute  examina- 
tion of  the  circumstances,  and  to  interpose  salutary  delays  ;  but 
when  the  laAV  of  God  does  not  expressly  say  no,  the  Church  can- 
not say  no. 

We  find  these  ideas  re-occurring  in  the  opinions  delivered  by 
almost  all  the  divines  who  elaborated  the  questions  relating  to 
marriage  at  Trent.  The  argument  which  might  have  been 
drawn,  and  which  is  Vvith  such  confidence  drawn  to  this  day, 
from  the  words  of  Jesus  Christ,  "  AVhat  God  hath  joined  togeth- 
er, let  no  man  put  asunder,'"^  was  found  to  be  defeated  by  an- 
ticipation in  the  passage  where  he  admits  divorce  on  the  ground 
of  adultery  ;  a  rule  could  not  be  promulgated  as  absolute  after 
he  himself  had  admitted  one  such  serious  exception.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  was  felt  that  a  law  of  this  importance  could  not 
be  made  to  rest  solidly  on  the  Church's  sole  authority.  Infinite 
pains  therefore  were  taken  to  find  for  it  some  scriptural  founda- 
tions, but  here  as  on  so  many  other  points,  there  was  no  resource 
but  to  travesty  into  doctrinal  declarations  certain  words  of  Scrip- 
ture which  are  evidently  nothing  of  the  kind.  Thus  in  the  de- 
cree itself  the  indissolubility  of  marriage  is  made  to  rest  first  of 
all,  on  these  words  of  Adam,  "  This  is  now  bone  of  my  bone, 
and  flesh  of  my  flesh  ;"  next,  on  these  words  of  St.  Paul,  "A 
man  shall  leave  his  father  and  his  mother,  and  shall  cleave 
unto  his  wife,  and  they  twain  shall  be  one  flesh  ;"'  lastly,  on 
these  words,  "  AYhat  God  hath  joined  together,  let  no  man  put 
asunder."  But  not  a  word  does  the  council  say  as  to  the  excep- 
tion pointed  out  in  the  case  of  adultery  ;  more  than  that,  in  the 
seventh  canon,  an  anathema  is  launched  against  whosoever  shall 
maintain  that  the  Church  is  mistaken  in  teaching  the  indissolu- 
bility, even  in  case  of  adultery.  Let  us  repeat  what  we  have 
already  said  :  this  point  is  one  on  which  we  could  most  willingly 
'  Gospel  nccorciincr  to  St.  Mnvk.  ch.  \. 


Ch.vp.  VI.  15G;t.  INSUPEUADI.E   DIFFICULTIES.  423 

forgive  Roaiiau  Catholicism  for  being  in  coiitratlictioii  with  the 
Bible  ;  but  not  the  less  is  the  contradiction  there,  patent,  flagrant. 
There  might  be  some  plea  for  making  indissolubility  a  law,  but 
to  teach  it  as  a  dogma  is  a  lie. 

To  this  first  dilTiculty  there  were  added  others,  lighter  of  them- 
selves, but  for  which,  when  complicated  by  the  idea  of  marriage 
being  a  sacrament,  no  solution  Avas  possible.  Among  the  condi- 
tions attached  to  marriage  some  are  purely  human  ;  the  consent 
of  parents  and  tutors,  the  minimum  of  age  allowed  in  the  spouses, 
&e.  Now,  supposing  one  of  these  conditions  awanting,  what  is 
the  marriage  ? 

Would  you  pronounce  it  null  ?  But  it  is  contrary  to  the  es- 
sence of  a  sacrament  to  suppose  that  it  can  be  annihilated,  by 
the  mere  omission  of  a  civil  formality.  In  vain  would  you,  like 
many  of  the  Trent  divines,  call  in  the  scholastic  logic  to  your 
aid.  "  Every  sacrament,"  they  would  say,  "  must  have  a  sacra- 
mentary  material.  Just  as  there  can  be  no  baptism  where  there 
is  nobody  to  be  baptized,  so  there  can  be  no  marriage  where  there 
is  nobody  to  marry.  If,  consequently,  the  spouses  have  not  the 
requisite  conditions,  there  are  no  materials  for  marriage.  The 
act,  therefore,  is  null,  just  as  would  be  the  baptism  of  a  dead 
child  or  of  a  stone."  Miserable  subtleties,  to  which,  moreover, 
there  was  needed  but  one  word  of  reply,  to  wit,  that  the  civil 
conditions  of  marriage  are  not  everywhere  the  same,  and  that  it 
involves  a  contradiction,  and  is  absurd,  to  say  that  the  same  sa- 
cramental words  might  create  an  indissoluble  tie,  or  have  abso- 
lutely no  meaning  or  efiect,  according  as  the  same  priest  may 
have  pronounced  them  on  the  same  persons  to  the  right  or  the 
left  of  a  brook,  if  that  brook  happens  to  be  the  boundary  between 
two  states  differing  in  their  civil  laws  relative  to  marriage. 

There  is  but  one  way  of  escaping  from  this  absurdity,  and  that 
is  by  insisting  that  the  civil  power  has  absolutely  nothing  to  do 
with  marriage.  As  long  as  the  Church  shall  have  failed  of 
reaching  the  point  of  regulating,  in  a  sovereign  manner,  all  its 
conditions,  alike  in  the  civil  and  in  the  ecclesiastical  order,  the 
sacramentality  of  that  act  can  only  be  for  her  a  source  of  embar- 
rassments and  rebuffs.  The  council  of  Florence,  accordingly, 
had  taught  that  the  consent  of  the  contracting  parties  is  the  only 
indispensable  condition.  This  is  good  logic.  When  you  baptize 
a  child,  it  is  in  vain  that  his  father  mav  not  have  consented,  the 
child  is  baptized.  In  like  manner,  if  marriage  be  a  sacrament, 
in  vain  may  the  parents  have  said  no  :  from  the  moment  that 
the  formula  has  been  pronounced,  there  has  been  a  marriage. 
One  might,  always  in  consistency  with  sound  logic,  have  gone 
even  farther  than  this.     The  child  vou  baptize  has  neither  sought 


424  HISTORY  OF  THE    COUNCIL   OF    TRENT.  Book  V. 

nor  accepted  baptism.  If  marriage  "be  a  sacrament,  if  the  form- 
ula of  marriage  has  the  virtue,  hke  that  of  baptism,  of  operating 
a  certain  infalhble  effect — one  does  not  see  how  the  priest  might 
not  marry  of  his  own  authority,  as  many  people  as  he  may  think 
fit,  without  asking  the  consent  of  parties,  without  even  informing 
them  of  the  fact. 

Here,  then,  as  in  so  many  other  things,  what  contributed  most 
to  the  force  of  the  Church  when  she  was  omnipotent,  contrib- 
utes now  only  to  her  humiliation.  What  really  is  the  civil 
marriage,  as  it  is  called,  recognised  now  by  most  states,  but  the 
standing  negation  of  the  idea,  so  dear  to  her  ambition,  that  she 
alone  can  make  lawful  marriages  ?  That  idea,  nevertheless,  she 
has  not  abandoned ;  she  cannot,  indeed,  abandon  it,  seeing  she 
has  made  it  a  point  of  faith.  She  is  reduced,  therefore,  to  the 
necessity  of  submitting  to  the  affiront  in  silence  ;  she  dissembles 
it  by  appearing  to  ignore  it.  Civil  marriage,  in  her  eyes,  has 
no  existence  ;  if  she  ever  spoke  of  it,  it  could  only  be  as  nothing 
short  of  an  impious  usurpation.  Excellent  as  her  theory  of 
marriage  might  be,  looking  to  an  epoch  of  omnipotence,  it  was, 
at  bottom,  the  fruit  of  temerity  rather  than  of  skill ;  her  advisers 
ought  to  have  provided  for  the  case  of  her  ceasing  to  have  the 
mastery  of  Christendom,  and  to  have  secured  at  least  some  out- 
let for  the  retracing  of  her  steps.  But  no.  Who  could  have 
ventured  to  foresee  or  to  predict  the  final  close  of  that  omnipo- 
tence which  had  been  so  fondly  dreamt  of,  and  towards  which 
new  advances  were  made  every  day  ?  AYas  not  the  very  transfor- 
mation of  marriage  into  a  sacrament  one  of  the  things  apparently 
most  likely  to  lead  to  it,  and  to  secure  its  permanency  ?  Look- 
ing at  that  continued  encroachment  made  by  Roman  Cathol- 
icism for  a  thousand  years,  one  would  say  that  it  was  an  army 
which  advances,  which  is  ever  advancing  in  proportion  as  the  tide 
retires,  without  reflecting  that  those  waves  which  are  fleeing  be- 
fore it,  may  yet  return  faster  than  they  have  fled.  Wherever 
the  Church  could  plant  her  foot,  there  she  planted  it,  and  behold 
the  tide  approaches  ;  behold  the  foot  v/hich  cannot  withdraw 
itself,  seeing  that  a  single  step  backwards  must  insure  an  utter 
defeat ;  behold  the  Church  encompassed  with  the  billows  of 
secularity.  She  well  knows  how  to  drive  them  before  her,  does 
she  say  ?  Vain  hope,  indeed  I  The  tide  of  ideas  is  not  one  that 
ebbs  and  flo^vs.  Once  that  it  has  begun  to  rise,  it  rises,  ever 
rises.  God  alone  could  arrest  it :  and,  further,  he  could  arrest 
it  only  by  arresting  and  crushing  the  human  mind.  Sad  mir- 
acle, which  God  will  never  perfomi,  but  for  which  Rome  has 
ever  been  found  but  too  surely  preparing  all  minds  that  have 
not  revolted  at  the  blind  submission  she  preaches. 


CiiAi'.  M.  lJti3.  MATRIMONIAL   DISPENSATIONS.  425 

Side  by  side  with  those  tyrannical  restrictions  there  were 
placed  the  most  unheard  oi"  relaxations.  01"  all  the  oLstruetions 
to  marriage,  there  was  hardly  one  the  removal  of"  which  might 
not  he  purchased  with  money  ;  the  very  indissolubility  of  mar- 
riajje,  admitted  as  a  doctrine,  was  often  reduced  to  no  more  than 
a  mere  Avord,  if  Ave  look  at  the  infniite  number  of  causes  of  nul- 
lity, one  or  other  of  Avhich  it  Avas  always  easy  for  princes  and 
other  great  folks  to  find  suited  to  their  purpose  when  they  had 
a  mind  to  change  their  avIa'cs.  DiA'orce,  in  fact,  did  exist,  but 
under  its  Avorst  ibrm,  that  of  a  retro-active  judgment,  annulling 
the  union  that  had  previously  existed,  and  denying  that  there 
had  been  a  marriage.  By  means  of  ready  money  and  submis- 
sion all  was  obtained  when  Avantcd.  Provided  the  question  of 
right  Avas  yielded,  the  court  of  Home  was  not  in  the  least  of- 
fended at  becoming,  practically,  the  humble  serving-maid  of  the 
secular  princes.  The  Reformation  has,  in  these  matters,  led  to 
infmitely  fewer  disorders  than  Rome  covertly  legitimized. 

The  subject  of  matrimonial  dispensations  accordingly  became, 
at  Trent,  a  perpetual  theme  of  complaint  and  lamentation  for 
the  Spanish,  German,  and  French  bishops.  Only  it  was  painful 
to  see  personal  interest  so  often  peeping  out  in  the  reproaches 
they  cast  on  others.  Many  of  them  Avere  manifestly  less  dis- 
tressed at  dispensations  being  so  multiplied  in  luimber,  than  at 
the  law  according  to  Avhicli  the  pope  alone  Avas  authorized  to 
grant  them  and  receive  the  price.  Be  that  as  it  may,  at  some 
meetings  of  the  council,  one  might  ha\'e  fancied  himself  at  that 
of  a  Reformed  Synod,  so  little  did  the  divines  and  prelates  re- 
strain themselves  in  denouncing  those  abuses.  The  most  violent 
charges  ever  launched  against  the  Reformation,  as  relaxing  the 
conjugal  bond,  Avere  noAV  hazarded  by  bishops,  and  Avithout  any 
calumny  against  the  head  of  their  Church.  Some  proposed  that 
the  number  of  obstacles  should  be  reduced  to  the  loAvcst  possible 
amount,  but  that  these  should  at  the  same  time  be  declared 
absolute,  so  as  not  to  be  removable  CA'en  by  the  pope  himself 
This  Avas  tantamount  to  a  decree  pronouncing  the  council  to  be 
supreme  ;  it  Avas  what  the  ultramontanists,  as  was  to  be  ex- 
pected, would  not  listen  to  or  endure  to  be  spoken  of.  Many  of 
them  CA^en,  in  the  course  of  the  discussion,  made  bold  to  assert 
in  set  terms  the  omnipotence  and  absolute  irresponsibility  of  the 
pope,  being  Avhat  had  never  before  been  maintained  at  Trent. 
The  Portuguese  Cornelio,  one  of  those  Avho  commanded  most 
attention  of  all  the  doctors  of  the  Roman  camp,  laboured  to 
proA^e  that  there  Avas  nothing  in  the  Avorld  that  the  pope  could 
not  grant  a  dispensation  for,  excepting  only  belief  on  points  of 
faith  ;  of  all  else,  of  the  commandments  of  God,  as  Avell  as  of 


426  HISTORY   OF   THE    COUN'CIL   OF    TRENT.  Rook  V. 

those  of  the  Church,  of  the  canons  of  councils  as  well  as  of  the 
decrees  of  the  Holy  See,  he  was  supreme  arbiter.  And,  on  this 
occasion,  the  party  were  not  afraid  to  resuscitate  even  those 
wretched  arguments,  based  on  single  words  and  syllables,  which 
one  would  think  must  have  been  buried  for  two  centuries. 
"  Abolish  dispensations  I  has  not  St.  Paul  said  that  the  Church's 
ministers  are  the  dlsjyensers  of  God's  mysteries?"  Such  was 
the  serious  argument  which  a  Dominican,  of  the  name  of  Val- 
entino, had  the  honour  to  propound.  Fortunately,  there  hap- 
pened to  be  present  a  Frenchman  called  John  of  Yerdun,  whose 
keen  satire  made  him  pay  dear  for  this  honour.  In  general, 
when  any  of  the  members  ventured  to  make  themselves  ridic- 
ulous in  presence  of  the  learned  doctors  of  France,  it  was  not 
done  with  impunity.  But,  alas  I  what  availed  them  all  their 
wit?  Even  while  making  game  of  the  ultramontanists,  were 
they  not  bound  by  the  same  chains  ?  And  if  they  jested  at  the 
Romish  arguments,  if  they  stood  out  to  the  last  against  certain 
exclusively  Roman  pretensions — how  many  arguments  were 
there  not  a  whit  more  valid,  yet  of  which  they  durst  not  make 
a  jest  ?  How  many  points  vvere  there  quite  as  far  from  being 
well  established,  and  yet  of  v.diich  they  durst  not  expose  the  fra- 
gility without  renouncing  their  profession  as  Roman  Catholics  ? 
All  these  discussions  resulted  only  in  obscure  decrees,  present- 
ing a  crude  medley  of  discipline  and  doctrine,  in  which  each 
party  remained  free  to  find  more  or  less  the  opinion  which  itself 
had  endeavoured  to  introduce  into  it.  Of  this  we  shall  ere  long 
give  some  examples. 

The  council  kept  its  promise  to  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine,  and 
accordingly  it  w'as  not  till  after  his  return,  in  the  congregation 
of  the  4th  of  March,  that  the  great  question  of  the  celibate  was 
broached. 

First  of  all,  the  principle  "was  laid  down  that  celibacy,  in 
itself,  is  holier  than  marriage.  On  this  first  point  the  meeting 
was  unammous. 

Is  this  a  question,  we  have  a.sked  ourselves,  which  can  fairly  be 
put  under  the  form  of  a  comparison  between  the  relative  merit 
of  the  two  states  in  life  ?  We  think  not.  Marriage  is  the  nor- 
mal state  of  man ;  celibacy  is  not  so,  seeing  that  it  would  end 
at  last  in  the  destruction  of  the  human  race,  a  result  manifestly 
opposed  to  the  designs  of  God.  Hence  a  first  objection.  Can  it 
be  admitted  that  Avith  a  Creator  supremely  wise  and  powerful, 
there  is  in  the  creation  anything  whatever  in  which  what  is  ab- 
normal, is  essentially  more  pure  than  the  normal  ?  The  barren 
fig-tree,  then,  savs  nu   ancient  controversialist,  was  purer  than 


Chap.  VI.  15(;3.      IS    CELIBACY    CONDUCIVE   TO    HOLINESS?  I'iT 

had  it  been  loaded  with  fruits.  In  the  second  place,  the  apol- 
ogi.sts  of  celibacy  have  never  said,  nor  could  say,  that  it  saves 
infallibly  and  of  itself;  no  more  have  they  ever  said,  in  so  far 
as  we  know,  that  people  cannot  be  saved  in  the  married  state. 
You  cannot,  then,  establish  a  direct  comparison  between  them  in 
point  of  intrinsic  merit ;  neither  the  one  nor  the  other  saves  ; 
neither  the  one  nor  the  other  consigns  to  perdition,  "  Which 
contributes  most  to  salvation  ?"  Such  is  the  only  question  that 
can  reasonably  be  started.  The  matter  in  hand  is  not  to  know 
which  of  the  two  states  is  the  most  lioly,  but  which  is  best  litted 
to  make  people  holy. 

•  Now,  in  these  terms,  any  general  and  systematic  answer  is 
impossible.  Such  an  one  will  lind  salvation  in  celibacy  without 
any  marring  of  his  comfort  and  happiness  ;  another  will  find 
notbing  in  it  but  ennui,  disgust,  temptations,  evil  thoughts  of 
every  kind.  "  When  I  had  pronounced  my  vows,"  said  Luther,^ 
"  mv  father,  who  had  strongly  opposed  my  doing  so,  exclaimed, 
May  it  please  heaven  this  may  not  prove  a  cunning  trick  of 
Satan  I"  In  marriage,  the  same  diversity  of  effects.  One  will 
grow  better  and  better  in  it,  thanks  to  the  salutary  pressure  of 
his  new  duties  ;  another  will  see  in  it  only  a  yoke,  and  those 
same  duties  Avill  have  proved  but  the  occasions  of  new  faults. 
Therefore,  we  repeat,  the  question  is  one  of  facts,  not  of  princi- 
ples. Such  an  one  may  have  been  lost  in  celibacy,  who  might 
have  been  saved  in  marriage.  It  is  as  impossible  to  say,  a  priori, 
which  of  the  states  is  the  better  of  the  two  in  respect  of  its  effects, 
as  to  prove  by  serious  reasons  the  intrinsic  superiority  of  the  one 
over  the  other. 

Celibacy,  in  the  Roman  Church,  is  imposed  on  two  categories 
of  persons,  monks  and  inins  forming  the  one,  and  priests  the 
other. 

As  for  the  former  of  these,  if  we  once  admit  their  existence,  it 
is  clear  that  celibacy  is  the  necessary  and  indispensable  element 
of  their  condition.  We  cannot  therefore  attack  the  celibacy  of 
the  monk  ;  it  is  the  monks,  it  is  the  monastic  life  itself,  which 
we  are  called  to  attack  in  the  name  of  Christianity  and  of  rea- 
son. 

In  the  name,  we  say,  of  Christianity  ;  and  if  v/e  had  to  do  so 
here  in  detail,  we  should  not  stop  at  the  idea — weighty  as  it  is, 
however,  that  monasticism  is  not  to  be  found  in  Scripture,  and 
that  it  is  not  easy  to  understand  how  a  thing  destined  to  play  so 
important  a  part  in  the  Church,  should  not  have  had  so  much 
as  a  sin<Tle  line  assiirned  to  it  in  the  New  Testament ;  no,  we 
should  go  straight  to  the  root  of  the  matter,  and  would  ask,  "  Is 

'  Letter  lo  Link.  lo2L 


428  HISTORY   OF   THE   COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  V. 

it  in  fleeing  from  temptations,  or  in  combating  them,  that  man 
is  best  brought  fully  out,  and  answers  best  to  the  views  contem- 
plated by  his  Creator  ?"  In  denouncing  the  crime  of  suicide  the 
idea  that  most  naturally  occurs  is  that  a  man  has  no  right  to 
quit  the  post  assigned  to  him  by  God.  AYhat,  then,  does  that 
man  do  who  buries  himself  in  a  monastery  ?  And  if  although 
this  mode  of  committing  suicide  may  have  less  guilt  attached  to 
it,  because  it  may  originate  in  Christian  motives,  and  have  some 
happy  results,  still  is  it  not  essentially  the  same  act  ? 

Suicide,  it  is,  in  fact,  and  that  of  the  saddest  kind,  since  it  not 
only  results  in  death  to  the  world  and  the  trials  of  the  world, 
but  often,  too,  in  the  death  of  the  victim's  mind,  the  death  of  his 
heart,  the  death  of  piety  itself  "VMiat,  indeed,  can  there  be  in 
common  with  true  piety,  in  that  gross  religiosity  in  which  Chris- 
tianity becomes  a  craft,  worship  a  duty,  and  the  sentient  and 
immortal  soul  a  praying  machine  ?  Have  not  even  the  wisest 
religious  orders  pushed  the  last  abuse  to  the  most  incredible  ex- 
cess ?  At  Cluny,  besides  religious  offices  of  a  frightful  length, 
conducted  in  common  and  individual  prayers  without  end,  07ie 
hundred  and  thirty-eight  psalms  had  to  be  recited  every  day. 
How  is  it  possible  that  such  worship  could  fail  speedily  to  be- 
come mechanical  ?  Accordingly,  when  the  Reformers  set  them- 
selves to  attack  the  monks,  they  found  nothing  to  say  that  had 
not  already  been  said  a  thousand  times  over.  Their  ignorance, 
their  sloth,  their  gluttony,  had  already  been  for  ages  the  laughter 
of  the  witty,  and  the  despair  of  the  godly. ^  Is  it  much  otherwise 
at  the  present  day  ?  Revolutions  have  passed  over  the  face  of 
Christendom,  and  their  bloody  rake  has  rid  it  of  many  abomina- 
tions ;  but  go  to  Italy  and  to  Spain,  and  you  will  have  no  difficulty 
in  finding,  in  all  its  turpitude,  the  old  type  of  the  monks  de- 
scribed by  Rabelais  and  Erasmus. 

Let  us  beware,  then,  of  trusting  to  the  poetic  reveries  of  so 
many  sentimental  folks  by  whom  convents  and  monasteries  are 
never  seen  except  through  the  clouds  of  the  imagination,  or  the 
mists  of  party  spirit.  Hurter,  too,  becomes  eloquent  in  his  pic- 
tures of  the  monastic  life.-  But  when  he  descends  to  historj^  he 
finds  himself  compelled  to  go  into  details  which  are  equivalent 
to  a  confession  that  he  had  been  hitherto  speaking  only  as  a  poet. 
Even  writers  that  have  been  no  friends  to  the  Roman  Church, 
have  for  the  most  part  allowed  themselves  to  be  too  much  seduced 

^  "Did  they  alone  perish  it  were  an  evil,  yet  one  -which  could  be  en- 
dured. But,  circulating  tlirougliout  Christendom  as  the  veins  do  in  a 
human  body,  their  deprivation" brings  with  it  the  ruin  of  the  world." 
Memorial  addressed  to  Paid  III.,  1538. 

2  Institutions  of  the  Church,  ch.  vii. 


Chap.  VI.  1503.  RESULTS  OF  CONVENTUAL   LIFE.  429 

into  the  belief  tliat  monaslerie.s  and  convents  gradually  degener- 
ated, and  that  it  required  the  corrupting  influence  of  ages  before 
they  could  be  brought  into  the  condition  in  which  the  Reforma- 
tion found  them.  Looking  to  what  they  were  as  early  as  the 
thirteenth  century,  when  alrno.st  under  the  eye  of  their  founders, 
and  when  controlled  by  so  severe  and  powerful  a  pope  as  Inno- 
cent III.,  we  must  ask  ourselves  where,  then,  we  arc  to  place 
those  days  which  are  so  often  appealed  to,  and  so  eulogized,  and 
the  golden  age  of  monasticism  llits  from  us  almost  as  much  as 
that  of  Saturn. 

Conventual  establishments,  then,  according  to  many,  arc  places 
where  man  is  wholly  devoted  to  God  ;  they  are  celestial  inlirma- 
ries  lor  the  reception  of  all  the  ailments  of  man's  mind  and  heart. 
That  it  has  often  been  of  use  to  have  some  such  refuge  to  offer  to 
loeary  cmd  lieavy  laden  soids,  to  use  the  words  of  Scripture,  may 
be  admitted  ;  notwithstanding,  on  this  very  ground,  where  the 
Church  of  Rome  appears  so  strong,  we  might  still  venture  to  ask 
if  a  soul  so  regenerated  as  to  pant  sincerely,  not  from  sloth,  but 
from  piety,  for  the  repose  of  the  cloister,  would  not  be  sufficient- 
ly regenerated  to  rear  for  itself,  without  the  intervention  of  ma- 
terial Avails — possibly  indeed  with  more  difficulty,  but  with  more 
true  progress  also — a  barrier  between  it  and  the  seductions  of  the 
world.  We  might  ask,  on  the  other  hand,  if  the  possibility  of 
ending  their  lives  in  a  house  having  the  reputation  of  sanctity, 
and  viewed  as  the  gate  to  heaven,  w^ere  not  for  many  an  encour- 
agement to  lead  ill  lives,  spending  whole  years  in  utter  forgetful- 
ness  of  God,  but  with  the  prospect  of  returning  to  Him  for  a  few 
days,  and  dying  in  the  cell,  or  only,  as  was  long  the  fashion,  in 
the  dress  of  a  monk.  But,  let  this  never  be  forgotten,  those  who 
have  become  monks  and  nuns  after  having  known  the  world, 
those  for  whom  the  cloister  has  been  a  seriously  felt  desideratum, 
have  ever  formed  but  a  very  small  minority.  It  has  been  in 
youth,  often  in  very  childhood,  that  they  have  thrown  themselves, 
and  are  to  this  day  throwing  themselves,  into  monasteries  and 
convents.  The  monastic  state  Avas  one  in  Avhich  there  was 
hardly  any  thing  to  dp,  for  the  few  monasteries  to  which  we 
are  indebted  for  useful  labours  can  never  be  put  in  the  balance 
against  the  ten  thousand  conventual  houses  which  have  only  had 
to  consume  their  revenues."^     "What  has  there  not  been  said  of 

'  In  the  space  of  a  century  and  a  half  (106G-1216)  five  liundred  and 
fifty  monastic  establishments  were  founded  in  Englatul.  The  year  1200 
beheld  the  rise  of  twent3'-three  abbeys  of  the  same  order.  ( Clteaux.)  At 
the  close  of  the  thirteenth  century  Florence  had  more  tlian  a  liundred 
monasteries  and  convents.  See  on  this  subject  a  curious  bull  of  Inno- 
cent X.,  (October,  1652.)  Protestants  never  said  more  or  spoke  better 
against  the  multiplication  of  monks  and  their  houses. 


430  HISTORY   OF    THE    COUNCIL    OF   TRENT.  Book  V, 

the  services  rendered  by  the  monks  in  preserving  the  manuscripts 
of  ancient  times  I  People  forget  that  what  they  have  preserved 
in  manuscripts — and  in  what  a  state  too  I — is  not  the  hundredth 
part  of  what  they  have  suffered  to  perish. 

Should  it  be  said  that  the  men,  at  least,  entered  with  their 
full  consent  into  the  cloister  ;  as  for  the  women,  how  many  were 
there  whose  vocation  was  not  the  result  either  of  constraint  or  ot 
moral  influences  equivalent  to  restraint  ?     The  heart  shudders 
to  think  with  what  impious  coolness  a  father,  a  mother,  would 
condemn  a  daughter  from  her  birth  to  the  eternal  icy  widowhood 
of  the  cloister.      Every  daughter  to  whom  her  parents  saw  no 
prospect  of  their  being  able  to  give  a  portion  suitable  to  the  rank 
of  the  family,  it  was  considered  as  a  matter  of  course  should 
have  no  vocation  but  the  convent.      '•  Instead  of  having  one 
dauo-hter  destined  to  the  cloister,  behold  I  shall  now  have  two  1" 
said  a  great  lord,  one  day,  under  Louis  XIII.,  after  havnig  lost  a 
large  sum  at  cards.     The  Chinese,  we  are  told,  kill  those  chil- 
dren whom  they  dread  being  unable  to  support.     Are  they  much 
more  cruel  than  such  parents  ?     Although  the  authors  of  the  last 
century  have  somewhat  damaged  the  cause  of  the  nuns  by  the 
bombast  of  their  infidel  pleadings,  how  can  we  but  groan  to 
think  of  those  millions  of  existences  which  have  fleeted  away, 
valueless,  incomplete,  suffering,  under  the  vaults  of  the  cloister  I 
and  yet  we  should  not  commiserate  and  lament  so  much  if  those 
poor  women  had  at  least  found  there  a  God  in  spirit  and  in 
truth  ;  we  should  not  even  dream  of  regretting,  on  their  account, 
their  never  having  known  the  endearing  ties   of  spouses   and 
mothers,  if  it  were  at  least  ties  truly  celestial  that  were  given  to 
them  instead.     But,  as  we  have  said  already,  piety  is  nowhere 
more  gross,  more  childish,  more  miserably  carnal,  than  in  con- 
vents ;  nowhere  is  the  worship  of  God  more  scandalously  effaced 
by  that  of  the  Virgin,  of  the  saints,  of  images  ;  nowhere  will  you 
find  more  deeply  rooted,  more  miserably  pushed  to  its  remotest 
consequences,  the  idea  that  salvation  is  acquired,  is  purchased, 
is  paid  for  by  dint  of  external  practices  and  vain  repetitions. 
And  the  Roman  Catholic  historian,  in  speaking  of  convents,  has 
not  even  the  resource  of  being  able  to  point  to  some  that  have 
rendered  services  to  the  world.     People  imagine  they  have  said 
all  in  citing  the  Sisters  of  Charity  ;  but  they  forget  that  it  is  not 
two  centuries  since  they  began  to  exist,  and  that  Roman  Catho- 
licism remained  a  thousand  years  all-powerful,  loaded  with  riches, 
without  doing  what  she  now  vaunts  having  done.     AA  here  were 
there,  at  the  commencement  of  the  sixteenth  century,  the  greater 
number  of  the  answers  that  the  Romanism  of  our  day  thinks  it- 
self entitled  to  give  to  those  who  criticise  it  ? 


Chat.  VI.  1563.  OBLIGATION    Ol     .MONASTIC    VOWS.  4S1 

Nor  \vcre  llio  assaults  then  made  on  rnouacliitjm  conlined  to 
the  principles  or  to  the  reahties  ofthc  system. 

There  were,  hirther,  questions  of  rehgious  and  of  common  law 
on  Avhicli  the  Church  had  rough  adversaries  to  deal  with,  some 
among  the  princes,  others  among  the   ranks  of  her   ordinary 
members.     People  asked  themselves  if  she  had  any  right  to  in- 
sist that  the  vows  should  be  perpetual,  irrevocable  ;  if,  in  the 
case  where  a  monk,  or  nun,  wished  them  broken,  she  had  law- 
fully the  power  of  constraining  such  an  one  to  remain  faithful  to 
them,  the  power  at  least  of  any  constraint  beyond  that  of  cen- 
sures.    Here  there  v/as,  in  fact,  a  singular  anomaly  ;   controver- 
sialists, it  strikes  us,  do  not  generally  press  it  enough.     The  Ro- 
man Church  glories  in  the  credit  she  assumes  of  having  abolish- 
ed ancient  slavery,  and  yet  she  has  estabhshed  a  new  slavery, 
still  more  absolute,  since  redemption  is  impossible.     The  monk 
and  the  nun  were  monk  and  nun  for  ever,  neither  could  any 
more  quit  the  monastic  life  than  a  prisoner  his  prison  or  a  con- 
demned criminal  the  hulks.     'No  doubt  there  was  a  personal  en- 
gagement to  this  effect,  but  every  vow  is,  in  its  own  nature,  an 
afiiiir  between  man  and  God.     It  is  God  who  receives  a  monk's 
vows ;  the  Church  does  no  more  in  reality  than  regulate  the 
form.     But  the  greater  or  less  solemnity  neither  augments  nor 
diminishes  the  worth  of  the  promise  before  God,  so  that  one  does 
not  see  how  the  Church  could  be  more  entitled  to  exact  by  Ibrce 
the  fulfilment  of  a  solemn  vow  than  that  of  an  engagement  made 
in  the  recesses  of  a  man's  heart.     Starting  from  this  idea,  sev- 
eral jurisconsults,  even  before  the  Reformation,  asked  themselves 
how  an  engagement  of  the  conscience  can  be  regarded  as  com- 
promised in  the  domain  of  public  jurisprudence  ;  more  accustom- 
ed than  the  divines  to  positive  reasons,  they  sought  for  a  logical 
transition,  but  could  fnid  none.     Next,  being  the  party  best  ac- 
quainted in  general  with  the  Bible,  at  least  as  a  collection  of 
laws,  and  finding  absolutely  nothing  there  to  support  the  pre- 
tended rights  of  the  Church  in  so  serious  an  afiiiir,  oftentimes 
they  ventured  to  doubt  whether  she  could  have  any  legitimate 
right  to  establish,  of  her  own  authority,  laws  that  pressed  so  hard 
on  the  most  essential  and  the  most  inalienable  rights  of  man. 

Since  the  Reformation  the  discussion  had  borne  principally  on 
the  celibacy  of  the  priests.  There  the  question  of  right  was  less 
complicated.  A  Church  may,  strictly  speaking,  fix  by  her  own 
authority  the  conditions  on  which  a  man  is  to  become  her  min- 
ister. If  a  master  has  the  right  of  choosing  to  have  bachelors 
only  in  his  service,  one  cannot  refuse  to  a  society  that  of  imposing 
celibacy  on  the  men  whom  she  pays.  The  evil  lies  in  this,  that 
Rome  has  made  it  a  matter  of  divine  right.     The  priest's  liberty 


J 


432  HISTORY  OF   THE    COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  BookV. 

is  alienated  for  ever.  It  is  vain  for  him  to  quit  the  Church's 
ministry  and  to  renounce  every  kind  of  function  and  stipend  ;  he 
is  bound,  eternally  bound  ;  the  Church  will  never  recognize  a 
marriage  contracted  by  such  an  one.^ 

Thus  we  see  the  abuse  immediately  follow  the  right.  We  ac- 
knowledge that  temporary  celibacy  may  be  required ;  it  is  another 
matter  knowing  how  far  it  were  well  to  exact  it.  As  for  per- 
petual celibacy  we  should  say,  as  in  the  case  of  monastic  vows, 
that  we  cannot  comprehend  how  a  human  authority  can  impose 
it  on  those  Avho  do  not  feel  it  to  be  binding  in  conscience,  and 
Avho  should  renounce  the  functions  in  view  of  which  they  had 
submitted  to  it. 

Much  noise  has  been  made  about  the  influence  which  their 
being  tired  of  celibacy  may  have  had  on  the  priests  who  em- 
braced the  Reformation,  and  in  particular  on  Luther  and  Calvin. 
As  for  the  latter,  it  is  the  most  gratuitous  calumny  that  was  ever 
forged  ;  and  as  respects  Luther,  it  is  far  easier  to  declaim  against 
what  have  been  called  his  carnal  tastes,  than  to  prove  that  they 
had  any  influence  in  the  first  movements  of  his  revolt  against 
the  papal  yoke.  Was  it  a  matter  of  such  difficulty  then  to  pro- 
cure for  himself,  while  remaining  a  priest,  those  gross  enjoyments 
which  some  are  bold  enough  to  reproach  him  with  having  sought 
in  marrying  ?  Theodore  Beza  in  his  youth  had  been  under  no 
necessity  of  making  himself  a  Protestant  in  order  to  his  indul- 
gence of  those  irregularities  for  which  he  is  so  absurdly  reproached 
to  this  day,  as  if  those  disorders  had  not  been  committed  by  a 
Uoman  Catholic  and  a  priest ;  as  if  history  did  not  stand  by 
ready  to  say  how  many  priests  and  monks  did  as  he  did,  and 
worse  than  he  did. 

And  wherefore,  besides,  wherefore  should  we  be  so  anxious 
to  establish  the  point  that  the  question  of  celibacy  had  abso- 
lutely no  influence  on  the  progress  of  the  Reformation  among 
the  priests  ?  Of  all  the  yokes  of  bondage  imposed  by  Rome  on 
her  ministers,  none  weighs  more  sadly  on  their  existence,  and 
on  all  the  portions  and  details  of  their  existence.  Here  is  a  law 
which  pursues  them  everywhere,  which  condemns  them  never 
to  taste  joys  which  their  Church  herself  pronounces  legitimate 
and  pure  everywhere  but  with  them ;  and  can  it  be  any  just 
matter  of  surprise  that  that  law  should  contribute  more  than 

^  This  reasoning  surely  rests  on  a  false  foundation.  The  Church  is 
not  an  absolute  mistress.  It  is  her  duty  not  to  make  arbitrary  rules, 
but  to  obey  those  of  her  Divine  Master,  who,  as  will  appear  from  what 
follows,  not  only  does  not  choose  to  be  served  in  the  pastoral  othce 
by  the  unmarried  only,  but  seems  to  give  a  preference  to  the  mar- 
ried.—Tr. 


Chap.  VI.  1563.       CELIBACY— DOCTRINE    OF    ST.  PAUL.  'i->'i 

another  to  suggest  their  inquiring  into  the  right,  in  virtue  ul' 
Avhich  it  has  been  imposed  on  them  ? 

The  autliority  from  which  it  emanates  is  that  of  the  Church, 
but  of  the  Church  alone,  standing  apart  from  all  divine  precept, 
Irom  all  analogy  even  with  divhie  lessons  and  facts.  Under 
the  Old  Testament  law  the  priests  were  married  ;  the  high-prie.st 
himself — he  of  Avliom  the  most  scrupulous  purity  was  required 
in  his  person,  in  his  habits,  in  his  most  insignilicant  actions — 
the  high  priest  was  married.  That  law  is  abolished  ;  the  New 
Testament  has  superseded  it.  To  make  Jesus  Christ  come  down 
daily  irpon  the  altar  is  more,  it  may  be  alleged,  than  to  enter 
once  a  year  into  the  most  holy  place.  Be  it  so.  But  if  celibacy 
be  one  of  the  consequences  of  this  superiority  of  the  Christian  as 
compared  with  the  Jewish  priesthood,  how  are  we  to  account 
for  the  silence  of  Scripture  on  this  new  condition  that  Avas  to  be 
exacted  ?  For,  in  fine,  if  it  be  a  question  of  purity,  it  is  inad- 
missible that  it  should  not  have  been  resolved  by  Jesus  Christ, 
by  the  Apostles  at  least,  and  that  the  supper  should  have  been 
so  long  administered  by  hands  radically  unworthy  of  the  honour. 
How  much  grandiloquence  has  been  wasted,  especially  in  our 
own  days,  on.  this  pretended  profanation  of  the  holy  mysteries, 
should  they  happen  to  be  committed  to  married  men  I  Yet  St. 
Paul  speaks  of  this  profanation,  and  that  too  without  horror, 
without  censure,  without  the  slightest  trace  of  disapproval.  ''  A 
pastor,"  says  he,  "  must  be  the  husband  of  one  wife,  one  that 
ruleth  well  his  oAvn  house,  having  his  children  in  subjection  with 
all  gravity."^  And  at  another  place,  "  I  left  thee  in  Crete,"  he 
Avrites  to  Titus,  "  that  thou  shouldest  set  in  order  the  things  that 
are  wanting,  and  ordain  elders  in  every  city,  if  any  be  blameless, 
the  husband  of  one  wife,  having  faithful  children,"  kc.  Had 
Chateaubriand  read  this  when  he  dared  to  write  that  Protestant 
ministers  "  repudiate  tlie  Creator  for  the  sake  of  espousing  the 
creature  ?"  Were  these  lines  to  fall  under  the  eye  of  a  heathen 
it  would  not  be  easy  to  convince  him  that  the  latter  of  those 
two  authors  was  a  disciple  of  the  former.  In  another  passage, 
it  is  true,  St.  Paul  seems  to  counsel  celibacy ;  but  to  whom  does 
he  there  address  himself?-  To  pastors?  No  ;  what  he  says  is 
said  to  everybody.  Does  he  venture  to  establish  a  law  ?  Not  at 
all,  for  he  elsewhere^  ranks  among  the  disciples  of  Satan  those 
who  should  venture  to  preach  it.  What  then  is  the  drift  of  the 
Apostle's  counsels  ?  He  speaks  of  persecutions  that  had  to  be 
endured  and  precautions  that  were  to  be  taken.     In  such  a  case 

'   1  Tim.  iii.  ""  }  S^'^''  ^■"• 

^  1  Tim.  i  v.,  "doctrines  of  devils,  taught  by  seducing  spirits  .  .  .  for- 

biddi:;ri  to  viarrr/." 


434  HISTOKY    OF    THE    COUNCIL    OF   TRENT.  Book  Y. 

it  is  clear  that  celibacy  is  attended  with  advantages  ;  the  fewer 
the  ties  to  be  broken,  the  more  prepared  is  a  man  for  sufiering. 
Such  is  the  amount  of  what  St.  Paul  says  ;  nothing  more.  The 
precept  is  one  entirely  of  circumstances  ;  even  v/ere  it  more  gen- 
eral, the  fact  that  the  author  had  spoken  elsewhere  of  a  bishop's 
being  married  as  a  thing  perfectly  natural,  and  about  which 
there  could  not  be  two  opmions,  were  enough  to  dissipate  any 
idea  that  the  contrary  counsel  could  in  the  smallest  degree  ap- 
pear, in  his  eyes,  a  question  of  purity.  And  why  do  we  speak 
only  of  St.  Paul  ?  He  whom  the  Church  of  Rome  has  made 
the  prince  of  the  Apostles,  the  vicar  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  channel 
of  conveyance  to  this  earth  of  all  the  spiritual  powers,  and  of  all 
the  graces  that  descend  upon  it — St.  Peter  was  married  1  He 
was  so  when  the  Saviour  addressed  the  words,  which,  according 
to  Rome,  made  him  sovereign  pontiff;  he  was  so  when  he  be- 
came, according  to  Rome,  the  bishop  of  the  world's  capital,  for 
it  was  certainly  less  than  twenty-five  years  before  his  death  that 
St.  Paul,  in  writing  to  the  Corinthians,^  speaks  of  his  colleague's 
wife.  The  Church  of  Rome  has  no  great  liking  for  this  detail. 
She  who  has  made  male  or  female  saints  of  all  the  persons 
named  or  alluded  to  in  the  New  Testament,  and  even  of  some 
who  are  not  named  or  alluded  to  there,  for  example,  the  father 
and  the  mother  of  Mary,  has  taken  special  care  not  to  grant  this 
honour  to  the  wife  of  St.  Peter,  although  St.  Paul  represents  her 
as  accompanying  the  Apostle  in  his  painful  and  perilous  journeys. 
So  successful  has  Rome  been  in  saying  nothing  about  her,  that 
a  gi'eat  many  Romanists  never  heard  her  mentioned  all  their 
lives,  and  that  they  hardly  believe  their  eyes,  Avhen  what  St. 
Paul  says  is  ^hewn  to  them.  "  My  dear  friend,"  wrote  Luther,- 
"  let  us  not  affect  a  higher  flight  than  Abraham,  than  David, 
than  Isaiah,  than  St.  Peter,  than  so  many  holy  martyrs  and  holy 
bishops  who  have  not  been  ashamed  to  acknowledge  that  they 
were  men  created  by  God,  and,  according  to  his  word,  have  not 
remained  alone." 

See  then  reduced  to  its  poetic  value — if  poetry  can  be  where 
truth  is  not — this  fundamental  argument  in  favour  of  the  law  of 
celibacy.  What  yet  remains  to  be  said  ?  That  it  is  fitting  and 
proper  ?  But  facts  are  at  hand  to  prove  that  in  this  argument, 
as  well  as  the  other,  there  is  more  poetry  than  reason.  Nothing 
more  beautiful  than  what  has  been  said,  in  prose,  in  verse,  under 
all  possible  forms,  especially  under  that  of  insults  to  the  Protest- 
ant Churches,  on  this  intimate  and  mvsterious  union  between  the 
priest  and  the  Church,  on  this  celestial  marriage  by  whose  duties 
he  is  entirely  absorbed,  the  joys  of  which  so  fill  up  his  soul  as  to 

'   1  Cor.  \^.  6.  ^  Letter  to  Reitsenbacb.  1625. 


Chap.  VI.  laGJ.      ARE   THE   ROMANISTS    MORE   DEVOTED  ?  435 

leave  no  room  for  those  of  domestic  life.  That  this  ideal  picture 
may  possibly  have  been  sometimes  realized  we  deny  not,  nor  do 
we  deny  that  it  may  be  so  still ;  we  confine  ourselves  to  looking 
at  facts  as  they  are,  and  ask  ourselves  if  Romanist  priests  gen- 
erally bestow  more  time  and  pains  on  their  churches  than  Prot- 
estant pastors  do  on  theirs.  On  their  churches,  we  say  ;  on  the 
Church  is  another  question.  There  are  by  much  too  many, 
on  the  contrary,  who  see  nothing  but  the  Church  ;  who  never 
dream  of  anything  but  the  Church,  who  live  and  breathe  only 
for  the  Church  ;  but  this  devotedness  is  too  much  alloyed  with 
human  ideas  and  human  interests  to  admit  of  our  allowing  it,  in 
Christian  consistency,  to  be  taken  into  account.  Is  the  Roman 
clergy,  then,  on  the  whole  more  devoted  to  its  flocks  than  are 
Protestant  pastors  ?  Are  those  men  who  have  no  families  to 
tend,  sensibly  more  ardent  in  tending  the  poor  ?  Are  those  men 
who  have  less  need  of  money,  generally  reputed  to  love  it  less  ? 
Do  those  men  who  have  no  children  of  their  own  to  occupy  their 
time,  find  more  time  to  devote  to  the  children  of  other  people  ? 
— is  the  instruction  of  the  peasantry,  for  example,  better  attended 
to  under  them  than  under  the  Protestants  ?  Do  those  men  who 
are  not  distracted,  it  is  said,  by  the  cares  of  this  life,  appear,  tak- 
ing their  life  as  a  whole,  to  be  more  absorbed  by  thoughts  of 
heaven?  Are  they  more  serious,  more  spiritual — not  at  set 
hours,  or  set  tasks,  with  a  mass  to  say  and  a  breviary  to  read, 
but  with  a  living  spirituality  mingling  with  everything,  and 
based  on  an  incessant  contemplation  of  divine  things  ? 

We  make  no  reply.  All  churches,  we  know,  have  their  own 
sores  ;  pride,  bitterness  of  spirit,  too  readily  insinuate  themselves 
into  parallels  of  this  kind.  And  yet,  without  entering  into  any 
details,  all  that  we  have  said  elsewhere  of  the  incontestable  supe- 
riority of  the  Protestant  clergy,  viewing  the  matter  in  the  general 
light  of  excellence  in  the  functions  of  their  office,  w^e  might  repeat 
here.  We  would  address  ourselves,  in  the  second  place,  to  all 
who  have  seen  Protestant  churches,  not  as  they  are  represented 
in  Romanist  writings,  but  with  their  own  eyes  ;  and  we  would 
challenge  them  to  say,  whether  they  have  not  usually  found  the 
pastor  having  an  eye  upon  all  the  wants  and  distresses  of  his 
flock,  and  at  the  head  of  all  charitable  or  pious  undertakings. 
We  would  ask,  in  particular,  if  it  has  often  been  discovered  that 
the  duties  they  have  to  discharge  as  fathers  and  spouses,  really 
clog  their  duties  as  pastors  ;  if  the  co-operation  of  a  helpmate  of 
the  other  sex  be  not,  on  the  contrary,  useful  and  desirable  amid 
a  host  of  cares  in  which  the  pastoral  dignity  would  risk  being 
compromised.    We  would  appeal,  in  fine,  to  those  who  have  Hved 


436  HISTORY   OF  THE   COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  V. 

at  one  time  in  a  Protestant,  at  another  time  in  a  Roman  Catholic 
comitry,  and  would  ask  them  where  they  have  found  the  clergy 
lying  under  the  popular  charge  of  being  ignorant,  lazy,  avari- 
cious, and  negligent  of  their  duties.  We  may  admit  that  there 
have  been  certain  amehorations  in  our  days  ;  still  it  remains  to 
be  seen  whether  this  great  pastoral  zeal  has  not  had  its  source, 
more  or  less,  in  the  eager  and  feverish  revival  which  we  behold 
everywhere  struggling  for  the  mastery.  Even  were  it  momen- 
tarily pure  from  all  human  alloy,  still  we  have  here  a  general 
question  to  deal  with  ;  the  pastoral  zeal  of  the  E-oman  clergy,  at 
such  or  such  a  period,  caimot  be  of  itself  an  argument  in  favour 
of  their  celibacy.  Were  they,  then,  a  married  clergy  of  whom, 
as  they  existed  in  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries,  even  the 
most  Roman  Catholic  historians  are  compelled  to  say  so  much 
evil  ?  Are  they  a  married  clergy  who  are  found  to  this  day  in 
so  many  Roman  Catholic  countries,  so  lazy,  so  worldly,  so  dead  ? 
"  What  strikes  one  first  in  the  Italian  clergy,"  wrote  Lamennais, 
while  still  dreaming  of  nought  but  the  revii^al  of  Roman  Cathol- 
icism, "  is  something  sluggish,  apathetic,  cold,  indifierent,  in  one 
word,  it  is  the  absence  of  life,  and  in  this  respect  Rome  itself 
forms  no  exception.  Everything  goes  on  as  it  best  can  by  a 
sort  of  old  habit  and  half- worn-out  mechanism.  Nothing  more 
rare  than  true  zeal,  an  ardent  love  of  good,  self-devotion,  self- 
sacrifice.  They  live  by  their  profession,  and  that  is  all."  No  ; 
it  is  not  for  the  good  of  the  Churches  that  the  celibacy  of  the 
clergy  has  been,  and  is  still  thought  desirable.  The  churches, 
the  pastoral  life,  the  parish,  have  never  been  matters  of  more 
than  second  or  third-rate  interest  to  Rome.  We  find  proofs  of 
this  in  all  the  revelations  which  her  encroachments  forced  from 
the  lips  of  members  of  the  council.  The  grand  affair,  everything 
in  short  with  her,  was  the  Church,  centralization,  unity.  The 
clergy  are,  in  her  view,  an  army.  The  same  motives  which  lead 
every  conqueror  to  desire  such  soldiers  only  as  know  none  but 
their  own  leaders,  and  have  no  other  tie,  have  led  Rome  to  en- 
join celibacy.  If  ideas  of  purity,  devotedness,  and  moral  fitness 
prepared  the  law,  it  was  not  long  before  these  proved  mere  pre- 
texts. Soldiers  Rome  behoved  to  have,  and  it  was  only  at  this 
price  that  she  could  have  them.  Not  that  it  is  to  be  said  that 
at  the  veiy  origin  of  the  afiair,  it  was  explicitly  declared,  "  We 
want  soldiers,  men  entirely  devoted  to  us ;  we  ordain  that  they 
shall  be  unmarried."  No  ;  but  the  spirit  of  such  a  declaration 
was  there  ;  in  following  out  their  mischievous  propensities,  cor- 
porations, hke  individuals,  have  no  need  of  openly  explaining,  at 
the  very  first,  their  ultimate  design.    By  a  gradual  process,  that 


Chap.  VI.  15G3.    HORROR   FOR   MARRIAGE   IN   A   PRIEST.  437 

which  had  been  given  out  at  first  as  a  human  lavv^,  came  to  be 
imposed  as  a  divine  law.  The  vow  oi"  celibacy  became  ot"  all 
vows  the  most  sacred.  According  to  Innocent  111.,  it  adheres 
so  proibundly  to  the  very  bones  of  the  monks,  that  the  pope  him- 
self cannot  absolve  them  from  its  obligations.^  Among  the  secu- 
lar clergy  there  have  been  examples,  at  wide  intervals,  of  priests 
marrying  with  the  pope's  consent ;  rare  practical  alleviations, 
which  did  not  prevent  the  theory  from  ever  becoming  more  and 
more  severe  and  absolute.  One  would  have  said  that  the  guilt 
attached  to  the  violation  of  this  law  oi"  celibacy,  was  great  in  pro- 
portion to  its  utter  want  of  any  foundation  in  reason,  or  in  the 
Gospel.  Even  at  this  day,  when  a  priest  leaves  the  Church,  his 
former  colleagues  generally  express  more  pity  than  hatred.  But 
if  he  proceeds  to  become  a  married  man,  oh,  then,  no  invectives 
are  thought  strong  enough,  no  malediction  can  be  found  propor- 
tioned to  his  crime.  That  which  Jesus  Christ  permitted  in  the 
man  whom  Romanists  pronounce  the  first  of  the  popes,  that  which 
St.  Paul  formally  authorized  among  bishops,  that  which  the 
Church  long  left  free  to  all  her  ministers,  has  now  become  trans- 
formed into  not  only  an  act  of  disobedience,  but  a  crime,  a 
frightful  profanation.  The  celibacy  of  a  priest  has  entered  into 
the  very  essence  of  his  priesthood  ;  some  doctors  have  gone  so 
far  as  to  teach  that  whoever  has  once  lived  in  marriage,  however 
long  he  may  have  been  a  widower,  is  for  ever  disqualified  for 
ofiering  the  sacrifice  of  the  mass.  Celestine  III.  was  very  nearly 
giving  this  tenet  the  force  of  a  dogma.  In  fine,  to  return  fo  the 
council,  among  those  very  men  who  had  been  heard  preaching 
up  the  pope's  absolute  power  of  dispensing  with  all  laws,  civil, 
ecclesiastical,  and  divine,  there  were  som.e  who  refused  him  the 
right  of  allowing  a  priest  to  marry.  And  they  did  not  inider- 
stand  that  this  right  was  to  be  taken  from  him  by  the  council ; 
they  went  much  beyond  this ;  according  to  them  it  was  a  right 
which  the  popes  never  possessed,  or  could  have  possessed,  any 

^  IS'umerous  details  will  bo  found  in  Ilxu'tor,  (cli.  vii.,)  on  the  progress 
of  the  question  in  the  Middle  Ages.  Resistance  to  it  was  far  more  pro- 
longed, and  more  obstinate  than  is  generally  believed.  The  Danish 
clergy,  who  were  the  last  to  submit,  were  powerfully  supported  by  the 
peasantry,  who  said  "  they  had  to  look  to  the  safety  of  their  wives  and 
daughters."  A  proof  this  of  the  disorders  which  they  saw  following 
the  celibacy  of  the  clergy  in  other  countries.  It  will  be  observed  that 
we  leave  this  side  of  the  question  entirely  out  of  view.  Of  all  the  ar- 
guments against  foi'bidding  the  priests  to  marry,  the  picture  of  their 
own  morals  has  been  long  the  most  powerfuh  The  improvement  now 
seen  in  that  respect,  cannot  blind  us  to  the  recollection  of  what  they 
were  during  whole  centuries,  and  what  in  some  countries  they  still 
are. 


43S  HISTORY    OF  THE   COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  V. 

more  than  that  of  annihilating  what  exists,  or  of  creating  what 
does  not  exist.  Such  was  the  importance  attached  to  the  main- 
tenance of  the  law  of  celibacy !  So  much  need  was  there  felt 
for  having  piled  around  this  palladium  of  the  Roman  Church  all 
those  ramparts  which  people  were  not  allowed  to  raise  round  laws 
that  had  emanated  directly  from  God. 


CHAPTER    VII. 

(1563.) 

POLITICS  AND    INTRIGUE   AGAIN.       THE    POPE,    THE    EMPEROR,    AND 

THE    KING. 

Political  pre-occupations — Death  of  the  Dxike  of  Guise — Cardinal  of 
Mantua's  letter  to  Paul  IV. — Letter  from  the  emperor — The  council 
has  remained  obnoxious  to  all  the  blows  then  levelled  at  it — The 
pope's  reply — Constantine  and  Theodosius — "What  has  been  made  of 
them,  and  what  they  were — Philip  11.  and  his  prelates — Tumults  at 
Trent — Two  new  legates — Morone  at  Inspruek — Negotiations — Peace 
in  France — The  pope's  ill  humour — At  Ti'ent  weariness  and  disgust. 

The  question  of  celibacy,  moreover,  like  all  the  rest,  had  come 
before  the  council,  not  in  its  simple  state,  but  associated  with  a 
train  of  political  interests  and  prejudices.  People  were  curious 
to  know  whether  in  the  event  of  the  pope  being  admitted  to  have 
lhe  power  of  allowing  a  priest  to  marry,  the  French  would  ask 
his  sanction  for  the  marriage  of  the  Cardinal  de  Bourbon,  Avho 
might  be  called  in  right  of  birth  to  the  throne.  But  the  French 
themselves  did  not  yet  know  how  they  should  act,  and  were  wait- 
ing for  instructions  from  their  court.  The  Cardinal  of  Lorraine, 
whom  the  queen-mother  had  almost  left  to  follow  in  this  matter 
vv'hatever  course  he  might  deem  best,  was  more  undecided  than 
anybodv.  On  the  one  hand,  in  the  event  of  the  Cardinal  de 
Bourbon  leaving  the  Church,  he  would  become  the  premier  pre- 
late of  the  kingdom,  and  in  the  possible  contingency  of  a  breach 
with  the  pope,  he  might  consider  himself  patriarch  of  France  ; 
on  the  other  hand,  in  the  case  of  Bourbon  remaining  a  priest, 
the  Bourbon  family  might  become  extinct,  and  the  house  of  Lor- 
raine ascend  the  throne. 

It  was  in  the  midst  of  these  uncertainties  that  he  heard  (9th 
May)  of  the  death  of  his  brother,  the  Duke  of  Guise,  who  had 
been  assassinated  at  Orleans.  That  event,  though  viewed  at  first 
in  Italy  as  the  worst  of  calamities,  was  ere  long  to  prove  almost 
as  fortunate  for  the  pope  as  for  the  French  Protestants.  De- 
prived of  its  main  stay,  the  court,  it  is  true,  found  itself  com- 
pelled to  make  peace  with  these  last ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  it 
felt,  at  the  same  time,  that  it  had  need  of  being  on  better  terms 


440  HISTORY   OF  THE   COUNCIL  OF   TRENT.  Book  V. 

Avith  the  pope,  and  must  now  look  abroad  for  those  means  of  re- 
sisting the  Reformation,  which  it  despaired  of  finding  any  longer 
at  home.  It  was  not  even  thought  necessary  to  send  orders  to 
the  bishops  to  moderate  their  zeal.  They  did  so  instinctively ; 
from  the  very  first  days  that  followed  the  news,  the  Roman  party 
could  see  that  they  had  not  intractable  foes  to  deal  with.  And 
when  so  many  difficulties  that  once  appeared  insoluble  were  seen 
to  disentangle  themselves  as  if  by  enchantment,  "  Poltrot's  ball," 
it  was  said  some  months  afterwards,  "  has  rebounded  as  far  as 
Trent.  It  has  cut  the  knot  by  which  the  chariot  of  the  council 
had  been  indefinitely  stopped." 

Possibly,  too,  there  was,  although  on  a  difl^erent  account,  some 
softening  down  of  their  terms  on  the  part  of  the  pope  and  his 
party.  He  had  received,  much  about  the  same  time,  two  letters 
which  could  not  fail  to  have  so  far  influenced  him. 

The  one  was  from  the  Cardinal  of  Mantua,  the  premier  legate. 
We  have  seen  that  he  was  a  straightforward  and  pious  man. 
Many  a  time  he  had  testified  his  repugnance  to  being  made  the 
blind  minister  of  the  interests  and  the  wishes  of  Rome  ;  many  a 
time  had  he  groaned  to  see  that  unless  he  chose  to  become  her 
declared  opponent,  he  was  condemned  to  contribute  more  than 
any  one  else  to  the  success  of  her  intrigues.  The  pope,  in  fact, 
after  having  repeatedly  expressed  his  profound  discontent,  had 
come  to  give  him  his  entire  confidence.  It  had  been  perceived, 
at  last,  what  advantages  might  be  derived  from  his  popularity  in 
the  council,  and  from  the  favour  with  which  he  was  regarded  by 
the  secular  princes.  Sick,  worn  out  with  anxiety  and  watching, 
he  received  an  order  to  go  and  meet  the  emperor.  But  what 
was  he  to  do  at  Inspruck  ?  He  was  not  even  clearly  told  what, 
but  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  had  gone  thither ;  and  this  was 
enougii  to  induce  the  pope  to  send  some  one  too,  however  painful 
the  part  he  might  have  to  perform. 

Hard,  indeed,  was  the  service  exacted  by  the  court  of  Rome  ; 
a  man's  self-esteem  v/as  often  exposed  in  it  to  as  hard  rubs  as 
his  conscience.  The  cardinal  began  to  weary  of  constant  obedi- 
ence. First,  he  dictated  to  his  secretary  a  respectful  letter  in 
which  he  shewed  the  uselessness  of  the  journey  ;  next  taking  up 
the  pen  himself,  he  summoned  courage  to  speak  out  his  mind. 
He  was  weary,  he  said,  of  perpetually  repeating  to  ambassadors 
and  bishops  promises  which  he  had  begun  to  see  would  not  be 
kept.  He  blushed  both  for  himself  and  the  Holy  See,  when  he 
thought  of  these  interminable  tergiversations ;  he  trembled  for 
the  future  prospects  of  the  Church,  while  thus  obstinately  refus- 
ing all  the  reforms  which  Europe,  led  on  by  her  kings,  loudly 
demanded.     He  added  that  he  was  sensible  that  his  end  was 


Chap.  VII.  1503.    THE   EMPEROR'S -LETTER   TO   THE    POPE.  441 

dniwiut^  near,  called  God  to  witness  to  the  purity  of  his  inten- 
tions, and  ielt  remorse  at  havino^,  against  the  voice  of"  his  con- 
science, taken  part  in  so  many  elibrts  to  perpetuate  abuses.  Six 
days  elapsed  ^  and  the  writer  was  no  more. 

Such  was  the  tirst  of  the  two  letters  ;  the  second  was  from  the 
emperor.  As  strong  and  much  more  frank  and  explicit  than  any 
that  the  pope  had  previously  received  from  the  sovereigns,  it  was 
not  unlike  the  Cardinal  of  Mantua's  postscript  in  its  essence. 
The  emperor  told  him,  in  substance,  that  he  had  come  to  In- 
spruck  in  order  to  have  a  nearer  view  of  the  council's  proceed- 
ings, and  that  he  had  not  as  yet  perceived  anything  but  intrigues, 
doubtfully  good  intentions,  and  too  manifestly  bad  ones  ;  that 
matters  could  not  remain  on  this  footing  ;  that  the  council  was 
about  to  fall  to  pieces  of  itself,  to  the  intense  satisfaction  of  here- 
tics and  the  everlasting  confusion  of  the  Church  ;  that  he  would 
not,  however,  suppose  the  pope  to  be  capable  of  any  such  selfish 
purpose  as  that  of  allowing  an  assembly,  on  wdiich  so  many 
hopes  had  been  built,  to  pass  away  in  smoke,  but  that  were 
such  really  the  pope's  intention,  matters  could  not  go  on  worse 
than  they  did.  Three  things,  the  emperor  added,  had  especially 
struck  him,  and  not  him  only,  but  all  his  prelates,  all  his  sub- 
jects, in  short,  all  Europe.  The  one  was,  that  the  decrees  all 
came  ready  made  from  Rome  ;  next,  that  the  legates  alone  had 
the  right  to  propose  matters  to  the  council ;  lastly,  that  the  pre- 
lates from  Italy  formed  a  party,  and  took  post  openly  as  the 
champions  and  the  advocates  of  the  court  of  Rome.  Now,  it 
lay  with  the  pope,  and  with  the  pope  alone,  to  rid  the  council  of 
these  three  plagues.  Certain  rumours  of  translation  and  disso- 
lution had  reached  the  emperor's  ears  ;  but  he  would  not  insult 
the  pope  by  suspecting  that  he  had  given  any  ground  for  them. 
His  Holiness,  doubtless,  understood  better  than  any  one  else,  that 
after  having  convened  the  council  at  the  instance  and  with  the 
assent  of  all  the  secular  princes,  he  could  not  dissolve  it  without 
their  approbation. 

This  last  point  was  not  quite  clear.  The  pope  had  never  ac- 
knowledged, in  point  of  right,  that  he  required  the  assent  of  the 
secular  princes  in  convoking  the  council ;  and  as  all  Roman 
Catholics  were  agreed  that  there  could  be  no  council-general 
without  his  concurrence,  they,  by  that  alone,  acknowledged  that 
he  had  the  power  to  dissolve  it.  But  if  Ferdinand  on  this  point 
went  too  far,  it  is  not  the  less  instructive  to  see  what  was  thought 
of  the  council,  shortly  before  its  close,  by  a  pacific  prince,  a  man 
full  of  good  intentions,  a  sincere  subject  of  the  Holy  See,  and 
sincerely  desirous  that  the  Church  should  recover  her  claims  to 

^  2d  ISIarch. 


442  HISTORY   OF  THE   COUNCIL    OF  TRENT.  Book  V. 

the  esteem  and  the  confidence  of  the  nations.  Pallavicini,  ac- 
cordingly, struggles  hard  to  weaken  the  purport  of  this  letter. 
He  insists  on  the  compliments,  the  excuses,  the  expressions  of 
respect  and  submission  with  which  the  emperor  had  mingled  his 
remonstrances.  Sarpi,  according  to  him,  saw  only  the  dark  side, 
the  rude  strokes,  and  these  he  tried  rashly  to  embeUish.  "  The 
emperor's  letter,"  says  he,  "  contained  not  a  single  grain  of  that 
aloes  which  springs  up  only  in  Sarpi's  garden  ;  though  I  ought 
to  call  it  rather  colocynth  than  aloes,  seeing  the  bitterness  of 
the  one  has  a  heahng  virtue,  whereas  the  other  is  poisonous."^ 
Notwithstanding  this,  Sarpi's  analysis,  down  to  the  very  strokes 
of  politeness,  hardly  contains  anything  which  is  not  to  be  found 
in  his  tart  rival.  He  has  only  forgot  to  mention  that  it  was 
secret.  This  was  an  additional  piece  of  poHteness,  but  a  proof 
at  the  same  time  of  the  severity  of  the  contents.  Thus,  accord- 
ing to  the  emperor,  the  assembled  prelates  had  not  yet  performed 
anything  that  the  world  expected  from  them.  They  had  lost 
consideration  in  the  eyes  of  all  right-minded  and  godly  people  ; 
there  was  nothing  good  to  be  expected  from  them  as  long  as 
they  should  remain  as  they  were.  Well,  then,  did  his  letter  put 
an  end  to  all  that  he  referred  to  as  ruining  the  council's  author- 
ity beyond  its  own  circle  ?  Certainly  not ;  on  the  very  day  of  its 
closing,  in  December,  he  might  have  repeated,  word  for  word, 
all  that  he  had  said  at  the  beginning  of  March  ;  his  letter  might 
only  have  been  richer  in  facts,  reproaches,  and  objections.  Such 
as  the  council  had  appeared  to  him  at  the  earlier  period,  the  same 
it  ought  to  have  appeared  at  the  last,  and  in  the  same  colours 
would  he  have  painted  it,  had  he  not  been  induced  to  refrain. 
As  for  the  dogmatical  authority  of  the  council  and  its  infallibili- 
ty, the  letter  says  not  a  word.  The  emperor  speaks  of  the  coun- 
cil as  of  an  assembly  altogether  human,  occupied  with  human 
affairs,  actuated  by  human  passions.  He  does  not  even  ask  how 
one  could  make  the  nations  believe  that  it  was  under  the  guid- 
ance of  the  Holy  Ghost ;  he  has  not  the  air  of  a  man  who  sup- 
poses that  any  one  could  entertain  the  idea  of  seriously  present- 
ing: its  decrees  as  having  emanated  from  God.  Once  more,  we 
do  not  mean  to  say  that  his  was  the  language  of  a  Roman  Catho- 
lic ;  we  simply  remark  the  tone  in  which  a  good  Roman  Catho- 
lic still  could  make  bold  to  express  himself,  in  the  first  months  of 
1563,  in  speaking  of  an  assembly  whose  most  insignificant  de- 
cisions have  been  magnified  into  oracles. 

Pius  IV.  caused  a  memorial  to  be  drawn  up  in  which  he  in- 
sisted strongly  on  what  did  not  depend  upon  him,  but  said  little 
about  what  he  was  personally  responsible  for.     He  declared  that 

'  Book  XX.  ch.  riii. 


Chap.  VII.  1503.  A   MEMORIAL   PRAWN    UP.  44:} 

he  had  never  put  force  upon  the  council  ;  but  this  was  not  what 
the  emperor  had  said.  It  Avas  well  known  that  there  had  been 
no  open  violence  ;  what  was  complained  of  was  the  occult  and 
continuous  action,  in  presence  of  which  it  was  no  exaggeration 
to  say  that  the  council  was  at  Rome,  not  at  Trent.  The  pope, 
moreover,  affirmed  that  he  had  never  forbidden  the  council  to 
vote  without  his  previous  advice.  Officially,  this  was  true  ;  in 
reality  every  one  knew  that  it  was  false.  AYhen  he  had  sent  ofi" 
his  advice,  he  added,  he  had  never  alleged  that  the  council  was 
bound  to  follow  it.  This,  too,  was  true  in  one  sense,  but  not 
true  in  another,  since  the  pope  well  knew  that  all  that  came 
from  Rome  was  sacred  in  the  eyes  of  the  majority.  The  great 
evil,  according  to  him,  was,  that  few  people  formed  to  them- 
selves a  correct  idea  of  the  council's  rights,  duties,  and  proper 
place.  Had  all  the  princes  imitated  the  piety  and  followed  the 
example  of  a  Constantino  and  a  Theodosius,  all  things  would 
have  gone  on  regularly  of  themselves. 

The  pope  would  no  doubt  have  been  very  angry  had  he 
been  taken  at  his  word,  and  had  his  crowned  adversaries  been 
strong  enough  m  history,  or  bold  enough  in  logic,  to  think  of 
placing  themselves,  in  their  relations  with  the  Church,  in  the 
same  position  with  the  emperors  he  had  named.  Those  two 
great  names,  or  rather  those  two  great  words — Constantino  and 
Theodosius — are  still  in  great  favour  among  certain  defenders  of 
Roman  Catholicism,  some  of  whom  are  ignorant  enough  to  ap- 
peal to  them  in  good  faith,  others  because  they  think  they  may 
saiely  enough  reckon  upon  the  ignorance  of  their  readers.  The 
Church  has  never  been  less  independent  of  the  civil  power  than 
under  the  first  Christian  emperors  ;  the  profound  sense  of  obliga- 
tion w^ith  which  she  accepted  the  imperial  favours  sufficiently 
.shows  that  she  had  no  idea  of  claiming  any  of  these  as  a  right. 
When  ancient  ecclesiastical  writers  speak  of  the  calling  together 
of  a  council,  is  it  the  pope,  or  the  emperor,  v»hom  they  represent 
as  having  ordained  its  convocation  ?  Have  they  ever  said,  for  ex- 
ample, "  the  council  of  Nice  under  Melchiades,"  or  "  the  council 
of  Constantinople  under  Liberius,"  in  the  same  manner  as  "  the 
Lateran  council  under  Innocent  HI.,"  or  "the  Council  of  Trent 
under  Pius  IV.,"  came  afterwards  to  be  spoken  of?  "  It  was 
from  a  spirit  of  concession,"  one  author  tells  us,^  "or,  at  least, 
of  toleration,  that  Constantino  and  his  successors  convened  the 
first  councils-general.  Accordingly,  it  is  very  bad  reasoning  to 
say,  the  emperors  convened  the  first  councils  ;  the  right  of  con- 
vening councils,  therefore,  belonged  to  them."  This,  we  admit, 
would  be  bad  reasoning  ;  but,  let  us  add,  it  is  not  we  who  say  it. 

*  Promut?nnlt. 


444  HISTORY   OF   THE   COUNCIL  OF   TRENT.  Book  V. 

Our  sole  conclusion  is  the  following  :  If  councils-general,  reputed 
legitimate,  could  have  been  convoked  by  an  emperor,  then  it  is  not 
indispensable  to  the  legitimacy  of  a  council  that  it  be  convoked 
by  a  pope.  "  But  that  arose  from  concession — toleration^  Ay, 
and  such  is  the  view  that  must  absolutely  be  maintained,  else 
the  whole  system  must  be  abandoned.  But  where  have  we  the 
proof  ?  The  fathers  at  Constantinople  write  to  Theodosius  that 
in  calling  them  together  himself,  he  put  an  honour  on  the 
Church.^  That,  you  say,  was  a  mere  compliment.  Agreed ; 
but  you  will  not  go  so  far  as  to  insult  an  oecumenical  and  infalli- 
ble council,  as  to  think  that  it  could  have  turned  into  a  compli- 
ment what  it  considered  to  be  at  bottom  an  act  of  sacrilege. 
Next,  what  was  the  object  for  which  that  very  letter  was  writ- 
ten ?  Shall  we  say  that  it  was  from  toleration,  too,  that  the 
council  asked  from  the  emperor,  and  that  in  the  most  formal 
terms,  the  confirmation  of  its  decrees  ?  "  Giving  to  God  the 
thanks  that  are  due  to  him,  of  necessity,  also  we  refer  to  your 
piety  those  things  that  have  been  done  in  the  holy  council."^ 
Such  were  the  expressions  of  the  Constantinopolitan  Fathers 
in  the  year  381.  In  a  word,  it  is  not  because  we  are  at  all 
taken  with  a  state  of  things  in  which  councils  were  in  the  hands 
of  the  emperors  ;  but  this  is  widely  different  from  their  being 
in  the  hands  of  the  popes,  and  their  being  nothing  without 
them. 

With  this  exception  the  reasoning  of  Pius  IV.  Avas  correct.  It 
is  clear  that  if  all  the  sovereigns  had  maintained  the  respectful 
immobility  which  it  was  alleged  Constantine  and  Theodosius  of 
old  were  observed  to  maintain,  the  council  would  long  ere  this 
have  come  to  a  close.  It  would  have  been  shaken  oft'  in  a  few 
months,  after  having  launched  some  anathemas  against  heretics, 
and  having  effected  a  few  reforms  in  matters  of  detail,  unless, 
indeed,  a  still  shorter  course  had  been  adopted,  that  of  not  con- 
voking it  at  all. 

The  Cardinal  of  Mantua  was  dead,  and  so  his  letter  misrht  be 
tossed  aside.  That  from  the  emperor  suggested  some  serious  re- 
flections ;  but  they  ended  only  in  redoubling  the  precautions 
taken  against  all  that  was  not  delivered  over  to  the  pope  and 
his  partisans  to  be  dealt  with  as  they  pleased.  The  reply  of 
Pius  IV.  was  not  even  sent  oft'.  "  It  was  thought,"  says  Palla- 
vicini,  "  that  this  matter,  so  abundant  and  so  crude,  required 

^  Littevis,  quibus  nos  convocasti,  ecclesiam  lionore  prosecutus  es. 

^  Agentes  autein  Deo  debitas  gratias,  necessario  quoque  ea  qua?  acta 
sunt  ia  sancto  concilio  ad  tuam  referimus  pietatem.  Rogamus  igitur 
tuam  clementiam  nt  per  litteras  quoque  tuse  pietatis  ratum  habeatur 
concilii  decretum. 


Chap.  VII.  15G3.  ANSWER   TO   THE    EMPEROR.  445 

beiiifrpradnally  mollified  and  prepared  for  def^lulitioii,  Ly  tlie  vital 
warinth  of  suitable  words,  so  as  to  make  it  easier  of  digestion." 
•The  pope,  accordingly,  wrote  only  a  very  short  brief,  in  which 
he  thanked  the  emperor  lor  his  dcvotedness  to  the  Holy  See,  for 
his  zeal  for  the  good  of  Christendom,  his  advices  on  the  subject 
of  reforms,  and,  finally,  for  his  caution  in  hstening  to  false  re- 
ports. He  added  that  Cardinal  Morone  was  about  to  set  off  for 
Germany,  and  would  present  to  him,  in  greater  detail,  the  ob- 
servations he  had  to  make  on  his  letter. 

The  pope,  at  the  same  time,  paid  the  utmost  attention  to  ce- 
menting a  closer  union  between  himself  and  the  king  of  Spain. 
The  arrival  of  an  ambassador  extraordinary  was  about  to  give 
him  the  occasion  of  making  greater  advances  towards  that,  with- 
out too  much  condescension.  Don  Lewis  d'Avila  was  received, 
therefore,  with  the  highest  honours  ;  Pius  gave  him  apartments 
in  his  own  palace,  and  loaded  him  with  courtesies.  His  in- 
structions, which  were  a  curious  medley  of  submission  and  bold- 
ness, of  ultra-Romanism  on  some  points,  and  ultra-GaUicanism 
on  others,  faithfully  represented  that  frank,  yet  false  position, 
Avhich  we  have  seen  invariably  held  by  the  Spanish  prelates  at 
Trent.  Philip  II.,  while  formally  protesting,  on  the  one  hand, 
against  the  concession  of  the  cup,  loudly  protested,  on  the  other, 
against  that  old  subject  of  scandal,  the  2^roponentibiis  legatis, 
with  which,  said  he,  the  council  never  could  be  free.  He  re- 
gretted that  the  continuation  had  not  been  openly  avowed  at  the 
very  first  session  after  the  council  had  resumed  its  sittings  ;  but 
the' more  faith  he  had  in  the  authority  of  the  council,  the  longer 
was  he  of  seeing  the  assembled  prelates  apply  their  hands  to  all 
that  had  to  be  reformed  in  the  Church.  The  king,  in  fine, 
craved  the  pope's  sanction  for  his  levying,  during  five  years,  the 
subsidy  that  had  been  granted  to  him  on  the  property  of  his 
clergy ;  he  required,  also,  a  dispensation  for  the  marriage  of  his 
sister  with  his  son,  a  ticklish  case  which  the  council  had  spoken 
of  putting  among  those  for  which  a  dispensation  could  never  be 
granted.  On  this  latter  point  the  pope  said  that  he  would  have 
the  matter  submitted  to  examination,  and  that  he  would  refuse 
nothing  that  he  had  the  power  to  grant ;  as  to  the  former,  that 
he  was  quite  disposed  to  grant  the  subsidy,  but  could  not  in  con- 
science do  it,  as  long  as  the  Spanish  prelates  should  remain  at 
Trent  and  be  subjected  to  so  many  expenses  there.  Let  the 
king,  then,  but  help  toAvards  the  winding  up  of  the  council,  and 
the  subsidy  would  be  granted  immediately. 

But  what  could  Philip  H.  do  ?  Notwithstanding  his  advices 
and  his  orders,  the  Spanish  prelates  continued  to  display  the  most 
independence  of  any.     In  the  question  of  the  authority  of  tho 


446  HISTORY    OF   THE    COUNCIL    OF    TRENT.  Uock  V. 

Holy  See,  they  astonished  the  Gallicans  themselves  ;  they  Avere 
nearly  jumping  at  once  into  consequences  from  which  the  latter 
recoiled.  "  Let  the  pope  give  us  back  our  own,  since  ^\e  leave 
him  more  than  his  own  I"  said  the  Archbishop  of  Grenada,  one 
day.  Angry  feelings  had  gradually  spread  even  into  the  nume- 
rous throng  of  footmen  and  other  domestics  with  M'hich  so  many 
ambassadors  and  prelates  had  crammed  the  city.  Bloody  brawls 
disgraced  the  streets.  Italy,  Spai?i,  became  two  war-cries  which 
in  a  few  minutes  would  bring  hundreds  of  combatants  together. 
On  the  12th  of  March  a  general  fray  took  place;  some  were 
killed  and  many  wounded.  At  last  the  excess  of  these  disorders 
led  to  serious  eHbrts  for  their  suppression  :  but  the  congregation- 
meetings  were  for  several  days  interrupted,  and  never  had  the 
council  less  the  appearance  of  a  council. 

We  have  seen  why  it  was  that  the  pope,  even  though  very 
ill-pleased  with  the  Cardinal  of  Mantua,  had  retained  him  in  the 
presidency.  That  prelate's  death  left  him  at  liberty  to  select  a 
more  devoted  representative,  and  such  he  found  in  Cardinal 
Morone,  to  whom  was  added  another  legate  Cardinal  Navigero. 
Hardly  had  they  left  their  homes  for  Trent  when  news  arrived 
of  the  death  of  Seripandi,  who  discharged  the  office  of  interim- 
premier  legate,  and  survived  his  colleague  only  a  few  days. 
Thus,  there  remained  at  Trent,  only  Simonetta  and  Hosius.  It 
was  resolved  that  business  should  be  suspended  until  the  arrival 
of  the  two  new  legates,  and  the  keenness  of  controversy  was  a 
little  moderated  in  consequence.  Two  deaths  happening  so  near 
to  each  other,  had  produced  a  profound  sensation  ;  the  present 
looked  dark,  and  the  future  darker  still.  Two  thoroughly  ultra- 
montane legates  could  bring  with  them  only  new  elements  of  dis- 
trust, and,  in  that  respect,  the  ultramontanists  themselves  looked 
for  their  arrival  w4th  apprehension. 

They  travelled  slowly.  The  pope,  it  was  positively  said,  had 
enjoined  them  to  reach  Trent  so  near  the  time  of  the  Easter 
holidays  that  no  one  could  expect  the  sittings  to  be  resumed  im- 
mediately. The  president,  in  fact,  arrived  only  on  holy  Satur- 
day. A  magnificent  reception  was  given  him.  At  the  first  con- 
gregation, held  on  the  13th  of  April,  the  members  learnt  from 
his  own  mouth  what  had  previously  been  a  flying  rumour,  name- 
ly, that  he  was  about  to  set  out  immediately  for  Inspruck.  This 
news  had  something  in  it  to  displease  almost  everybody,  Span- 
iards as  well  as  French,  as  indicative  of  an  alliance  between 
the  pope  and  the  emperor  ;  the  Italians,  as  a  weakness,  for  they 
thought  it  little  becoming  in  the  president  of  a  council  to  put 
himself  about  for  the  sake  of  visiting  a  temporal  prince  ;  the  im- 
patient, as  causing  delay  ;  tlie  religious,  in  fine,  as  proving  that 


Chap.  VII.  1563.  EMBASSY    INTO    GER.MANY.  447 

the  council  was  to  continue  to  be,  before  all  tliincr?^,  and  in  all 
things,  a  mere  political  aliair. 

As  for  the  (Jardinal  of  Lorraine,  who  had  eagerly  made  interest 
for  the  title  of  legate,  and  for  this  end  had  made  advances  little 
in  consistency  with  his  Gallicauism,  he  had  gone  to  hide  his  ill 
humour  at  Venice,  but  not  without  exhaling  it,  in  the  company 
of  his  friends,  in  terms  little  fitted  to  make  the  pope  regret  his 
not  having  named  him.  Morone,  on  the  contrary,  greatly  de- 
sired to  see  him  before  setting  out  for  Germany ;  but  as  the 
crafty  Lorrainer  had  no  wish  to  come  under  any  engagement,  by 
no  means  could  he  be  induced  to  return  in  time.  He  arrived  on 
the  20th  of  April,  and  Morone  had  set  off  on  the  16th. 

This  embassage  into  Germany  had  been  officially  announced 
as  a  mere  matter  of  courtesy  and  good  understanding  betv/ixt  the 
pope  and  the  emperor ;  at  bottom,  it  was  an  afiiiir  of  the  greatest 
delicacy  and  gravity  that  had  occurred  for  a  long  while.  First 
of  all,  as  the  pope  began  to  see  no  hope  of  safety  but  in  a  co?(/^ 
cVetat  which  should  put  the  council  absolutely  in  his  power,  it 
was  necessary  that  Ferdinand  should  be  brought  to  consent  to 
the  eventuality  of  a  translation  to  Bologna.  In  the  second  place, 
as  he  had  spoken  of  coming  to  Trent,  and  the  po2:)e  dreaded  this 
extremely,  it  was  necessary  that  he  should  be  induced  to  renounce 
this  purpose,  and  to  engage  him  at  the  same  time  to  come  to 
Bologna,  in  case  of  the  assembly  transporting  itself  thither  ;  the 
pope  would  repair  there  also,  and  would  solemnly  place  the  im- 
perial crown  with  his  own  hands  upon  his  head — a  ceremony 
by  which  Pius  IV.  would  have  been  happy  to  verify,  at  least  in 
point  of  form,  the  right  of  distributing  crowns  claimed  by  the 
Holy  See.  Moreover,  once  at  Bologna,  the  pope  would  natural- 
ly find  himself  at  the  head  of  the  council,  but  this,  people  were 
assured,  only  to  bring  it  to  an  auspicious  termination  by  himself 
proposing  many  of  the  reforms  that  were  demanded.  In  fine, 
the  emperor  had  to  be  induced  to  desist  from  pressing  a  large 
part  of  the  demands  which  he  had  presented  or  approved.  With 
this  view,  Morone  had  orders  to  promise  him  that,  on  the  council 
being  brought  to  a  close,  he  would  obtain  directly  from  the  pope, 
all  that  should  be  judged  necessary  for  the  good  of  his  States, 
and,  in  particular,  the  concession  of  the  cup.  It  is  not  explained 
how  the  pope  could  permit  himself  to  be  carried  away  by  the 
hope  of  such  a  change  in  tlie  ideas  and  plans  of  the  emperor. 

Meanwhile  he  thought  he  was  bound  to  pronounce  an  ener- 
getic protest  against  the  treaty  of  peace  that  had  been  concluded 
between  Charles  IX.  and  the  French  Protestants.  Contrarv  to 
one  of  the  most  ancient  privileges  of  the  kingdom,  in  virtue  of 
Avhich  no  bi.shop  could  be  tried  in  the  first  instance  except  in 


448  HISTORY    OF   THE    COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  V. 

the  country  itself,  and  by  twelve  of  the  bishops  of  the  country, 
ten  of  them  were  summoned  to  appear  personally  at  Home  as 
heretics  and  favourers  of  heresy.  So  much  despatch  and  secrecy 
had  been  employed  that  the  French  ambassador  had  had  no  time 
to  protest ;  he  confined  himself  to  remonstrating  that  this  irreg- 
ular summons  would  not  be  received,  and  that  even  w^ere  the 
bishops  willing  to  obey,  the  parliament  and  the  court  would  op- 
pose their  doing  so.  In  fact  the  summons  fell  to  the  ground,  and 
while  it  was  published  at  Rome  the  parliament  of  Paris  regis- 
tered the  edict  of  pacification,  bearing  among  other  things  that 
were  little  suited  to  please  the  pope,  "  that  the  kingdom  had  suf- 
fered enough ;  that  the  king  was  determined  to  make  peace,  and 
to  grant  liberty  of  conscience,  under  certain  restrictions,  in  the 
hope  that  with  time,  by  means  of  a  holy  and  free  council,  w^he- 
ther  general  or  national,  all  disunion  w^ould  at  last  disappear." 
This  was  a  prospect  for  the  future  hardly  warranted  by  the  past ; 
but  we  have  here  a  fact  confirmatory  of  what  we  have  super- 
abundantly demonstrated,  to  wdt,  that  the  Council  of  Trent, 
down  to  the  close  of  its  sittings,  was  almost  nowhere  considered 
as  free,  or  as  really  general,  or  as  having  answ^ered  to  the  object 
that  people  had  in  view  in  calling  for  it. 

And  it  was  not  in  the  very  midst  of  the  assembly  that  least 
doubt  was  expressed,  if  not  upon  its  legitimacy,  at  least  upon 
the  authority  and  permanent  force  of  its  acts.  At  the  epoch  at 
which  we  have  now  arrived  all  the  correspondence  by  letters, 
all  the  written  accounts,  bear  the  impress  of  weariness  and  dis- 
gust. We  see  men  who  have  ceased  to  have  any  confidence 
either  in  themselves  or  in  their  work.  Some  we  see  blindly 
throwing  themselves  into  the  inconsistencies  of  Gallican  liberal- 
ism ;  others  pressing  more  and  more  eagerly  round  the  pope  ; 
but  as  for  people  believmg  apparently  in  the  council,  in  its  divine 
commission,  in  the  future  subsistence  of  its  acts,  we  see  none,  or 
next  to  none.  Europe  is  there,  all  around,  as  if  at  the  side  of 
the  bed  of  a  dying  person  who  still  breathes,  but  who  is  spoken 
of  as  if  already  dead.  Ambassadors,  and  even  princes,  protest 
no  longer.  Formerly  the  king  of  France  w'ould  have  thought 
himself  obliged  at  least  to  say  why  he  did  not  accept  the  council ; 
in  March,  1563,  he  does  not  so  much  as  mention  it.  A  free 
and  holy  council,  says  he,  will  succeed  at  last  in  consolidating 
peace.  He  speaks  like  one  quite  unaware  that  there  is  any- 
where an  assembly  calling  itself  a  council.  It  is  true  that  that 
assembly  had  little  answered  hitherto  to  the  ideal  that  he  had 
traced  of  it  in  speaking  of  consolidating  peace.  The  gulf  be- 
tween the  Reformation  and  Rome  was  deeper  than  ever,  A 
thousand  matters  of  dispute  that  had  lain  buried  hitherto  in  the 


Chap.  VII.  1503.       TJIK    TWO    FACES    OF    CARDINAL    LUKUAlNt:  44'J 

dust  of  tlie  scliools  had  been  brouglit  out  into  open  siglit  oi' 
Christendom.  "  0,  city  of  Trent  1  O,  inho.s])il;ible  city  I"  ex- 
claimed tlic  Bisliop  of  Budoa,  "  with  good  reason  Milt  thou  be 
put  to  the  ban  by  the  nations  as  a  hotbed  of  troubles'."  And 
upon  this  thesis  he  had  constructed  a  whole  burlesque  parody 
of  Isaiah's  threatenings  against  Jerusalem.  A  poor  joke  and  a 
foolish  bishop  ;  but,  after  all,  he  merely  gave  a  farcical  interpre- 
tation to  what  was  said  by  some  and  thought  by  almost  all. 

Meanwhile  nothing,  or  next  to  nothing,  was  done.  Cardinal 
Navigero  did  not  arrive  until  the  30th  of  April,  the  bearer,  he 
said,  of  an  order  from  the  pope  to  labour  seriously  at  the  work 
of  reforms  ;  but  he  had  orders,  also,  to  do  nothing  before  the 
premier  legate's  return.  The  latter  had  been  Ibllowed  to  In- 
spruck  by  an  envoy  of  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine,  charged  with 
instructions  to  urge  the  emperor  to  keep  to  his  resolution.  Ac- 
cordingly he  met  with  no  success,  and  the  imperial  doctors  con- 
tinued peaceably  to  work  at  the  far  from  Homan  articles  that 
had  been  submitted  to  them.  • 

In  fine,  wdiile  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  w^as  intriguing  against 
the  pope  at  Inspruck  he  sent  one  of  his  secretaries  to  the  pope 
himself  with  the  assurance  of  his  most  profound  devotion.  Cari- 
catures were  circulated  accordingly,  in  which  he  was  represented 
with  two  faces,  one  looking  arrogantly  to  the  north,  the  other 
looking  humbly  and  submissively  to  the  south.  The  pope,  offi- 
cially, saw^  only  the  latter  ;  the  former,  without  appearing  to  see 
it,  he  saw  better  still.  AYas  the  cardinal,  then,  the  only  man 
that  had  two  faces  ?  If  any  one  had  attempted  to  give  a  por- 
trait of  the  pope,  how  many  would  he  have  needed  to  give  him  ? 
Had  the  council  itself  never  more  than  one  face  ?  And,  in  short, 
would  no  one  rather  have  said  of  it  that  it  was  like  one  of  those 
theatrical  scenes  in  which  the  personages  see  each  other,  hear 
each  other,  almost  touch  each  other,  without  apparently  seeing 
or  hearing  each  other  ?  Happily  the  piece  has  not  disappeared 
with  the  actors  ;  and  that  piece  has  become  something  too  seri- 
ous for  us  not  to  be  entitled  to  scrutinize  the  worth  at  which  it 
was  estimated  in  the  eyes  of  the  spectators  at  that  time,  and  in 
the  eyes  of  the  actors  themselves. 


BOOK  VI. 

THE  COUNCIL  HURRIED  TO  A   CLOSE. 

CHAPTEE   I. 

DISPUTES    ON  PAPAL    AUTHORITY.      LAINEZ    BEARDS    THE   COUXCIL. 
LORRAINE    GOES    OVEFc    TO    THE    POPE. 

Glance  at  the  position  of  parties — The  assembly — The  Roman  Catholics 
— ^The  Protestants — the  Pope — Rome — The  emperor  begins  to  fail — 
The  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  goes  over  to  the  iiltramontanists — What  is 
a  heretic  in  the  eyes  of  the  Church — Consistency  ^vith  her  requires 
persecution — The  question  of  divine  right  resumed — The  cardinal 
makes  a  second  step — The  council  is  led  away  into  the  field  of  the 
pope's  authority — The  opinion  of  Lainez  on  dispensations  and  the 
right  to  dispense — Almost  everybody  shocked  by  his  ideas  and  the 
tone  in  which  he  announced  them — He  excuses  himself — The  cardinal 
stops  the  protests — Dispute  betwixt  the  ambassadors  of  France  and 
Spain — ^State  of  the  question — A  bias  and  its  sequel — Violent  acts  of 
the  French  ambassador — Compromise — Other  disputes  of  the  same 
kind. 

As  we  draw  towards  the  conclusion  it  will  not  be  uninterest- 
ing to  explain  in  a  few  words  the  position  of  the  parties  chiefly 
interested.  To  describe  in  detail  all  that  was  in  agitation  in 
Trent,  and  around  Trent,  at  this  time,  would  be  to  describe 
chaos. 

Among  the  members  of  the  assembly,  as  we  have  already 
said,  there  prevailed  weariness  and  discouragement,  to  which  we 
may  add  an  almost  general  neglect  of  dogmatical  questions.  A 
stranger  never  would  have  imagined  that  any  of  these  yet  re- 
mained on  the  orders  of  the  day  ;  he  would  have  supposed  him- 
self rather  in  a  diet  than  in  a  council. 

Among  the  generality  of  Roman  Catholics,  we  have  already 
said  also,  there  were  disappointment,  distrust,  unanimity  in  feel- 
ing, and  almost  unanimity  in  saying  that  this  was  not  what  had 
been  expected. 

Among  the  Protestants  you  might  see  that  the  council  was 
forgotten  and  despised.     They  were  no  longer  spoken  to  about 


Chap.  1.  1003.  SENTIMENTS    OF    VARIOUS    PARTIES.  451 

submillinf^  to  the  council.  Matters  had  come  to  that  point  that 
it  would  not  only  have  been  unreasonable,  as  it  had  ever  been, 
but  ridiculous,  to  give  them  lor  oracles  of  the  Holy  Ghost  the; 
decisions  of  an  assembly  where  so  many  pa.ssions  and  intrigues 
were  fermenting. 

The  secular  princes,  who  had  always,  and  before  all  things, 
seen  in  a  council  the  rc-establishmcnt  of  unity,  an  illusion  which 
vanished  IVom  the  time  that  the  first  sessions  were  held,  the 

SI  ' 

princes,  we  say,  now  concerned  themselves  about  the  council  as 
people  concern  themselves  about  alliiirs  that  they  have  once 
taken  up,  but  on  which  they  have  ceased  to  fnid  any  hopes. 
Besides,  with  excellent  views  and  excellent  intentions  relative  to 
abuses  in  general,  each  held  to  the  preservation  of  those  from 
which  he  himself  in  particular  derived  some  advantage,  and,  as 
Pius  IV.  very  well  said,  each  wanted  to  reibrm  everj'body  but 
himself 

The  pope,  in  line,  while  loudly  complaining  of  the  selfishness 
of  the  princes,  knew  assuredly  better  than  any  one  else,  that 
there  lay  the  anchor  of  his  ow^i  salvation.  Had  they  all  been 
agreed  on  all  points,  resistance  would  have  been  hopeless.  But 
what  was  asked  for  by  some  was  not  asked  for  by  others,  or  the 
very  contrary  was  asked  for.  If  this  was  not  a  reason  for  abso- 
lutely refusing,  it  was  alwaj's  one  for  putting  the  matter  ofi"  in- 
definitely, or  lor  referring  it  to  the  judgment  of  the  pope.  Hence 
some  of  the  most  delicate  points  had  successively  escaped  being 
iudged  by  the  council.  Not  that  there  was  not  more  than  one 
on  which  all  sovereigns  were  agreed ;  all,  for  example,  were  for 
the  divine  right  in  the  episcopate.  But  as  they  had  no  common 
understanding  as  to  the  importance  to  be  attached  to  the  ques- 
tion, as  to  the  necessity  for  having  it  settled,  and  the  form  to  be 
adopted  for  the  effect,  ample  room  was  aflbrded  for  taking  ad- 
vantage of  these  divergencies  and  avoiding  a  decision  either  way. 
The  pope,  moreover,  although  he  had  more  to  hope  from  time 
than  from  any  other  auxiliary,  was  more  impatient,  more  fa- 
tigued, more  exhausted,  than  the  council.  Seventeen  years  of 
strugo-liiior  had  led  the  court  of  Rome  to  unmask,  one  after  an- 
other,  all  its  batteries,  to  let  the  world  see  all  its  fears,  and  even 
all  the  details  and  all  the  various  shades  of  those  fears.  It  reck- 
oned up  with  terror  all  that  it  had  lost  by  the  council,  if  not  in 
positive  rights,  at  least  in  moral  authority  ;  it  durst  not  believe 
in  the  stability  of  the  decisions  that  had  been  taken  according  to 
its  views  ;  it  knew  too  well,  and  care  enough  was  taken  to  tell 
it,  that  its  intrigues  had  been  manifest  to  everybody,  and  none 
had  been  deceived  but  those  who  wished  to  be  so.  Had  it  been 
told  that  the  dav  wovdd  come  when  the  collection  of  the  canons 


452  HISTORY   OF   THE   COUNCIL    OF    TRENT.  Book  VI. 

of  the  council  would  be  the  citadel  of  the  Church  of  Rome  and 
of  the  popedom,  it  would  have  thought  the  prediction  an  idle 
dream ;  the  best  thing,  according  to  all  appearances  at  that 
time,  that  it  could  expect  was  that,  the  council  once  over,  not  a 
word  should  ever  be  said  about  it,  either  good  or  bad. 

The  essential  matter,  accordingly,  was  to  bring  it  to  a  close. 
Morone  had  come  back  from  Germany  after  long  and  useless  con- 
ferences, and  with  nothing  but  vague  and  far  from  encouraging 
answers  to  communicate  to  the  pope.  The  emperor  had  said 
that  the  transference  of  the  council  was  not  to  be  thought  of 
without  the  consent  of  the  kings  of  Spain  and  France  ;  that  the 
good  intentions  of  the  pope,  which,  for  his  part,  he  had  no  wish 
to  doubt,  would  not  prevent  unpleasant  suppositions  as  to  the  ob- 
ject of  the  translation  ;  that  all  the  bishops,  according  to  him, 
ought  to  enjoy  the  right  of  proposing  measures,  and  that  either 
the  'proponentibus  must  be  expunged,  or  a  declaration  made  to 
the  effect  that  there  had  been  no  intention  of  asserting  an  ex- 
clusive privilege  ;  that,  in  fine,  he  could  not  renounce  his  de- 
mand for  the  examination  of  all  that  had  been  presented,  both 
in  his  name  and  in  that  of  the  king  of  France. 

But  when  he  saw  that  same  prince  begin  to  give  way  on  all 
points,  one  after  another,  except  that  of  the  translation,  and  to 
shut  his  eyes  on  all  the  expedients  that  were  employed  for  bring- 
ing, right  or  wrong,  the  council  to  an  end,  it  was  not  to  be  be- 
lieved that  that  unbending  reply  had  been  really  his  last  Avord 
to  the  papal  envoy.  The  report  was  circulated  that  Morone  had 
been  more  fortunate  than  had  been  thought  at  his  return,  or 
than  he  himself  had  seemed  to  believe.  It  was  not  supposed, 
nevertheless,  that  he  had  converted  Ferdinand  to  the  views  of 
the  pope  ;  but  it  might  have  been  supposed  that  by  shewing  him 
how  very  enormous  the  obstacles  were,  he  had  indirectly  put 
him  in  the  predicament  of  having  to  choose  between  a  rupture 
with  Home  and  a  speedy  termination  of  the  council,  alternatives 
between  which  a  Roman  Catholic  prince  could  hardly  hesitate, 
especially  in  Germany  at  the  centre  of  the  Reformation.  We 
cannot  know  up  to  what  point  these  suppositions  were  well 
founded ;  but  they  were  justified  by  the  event.  True,  we  shall 
still  see  the  emperor's  representatives  throwing  obstacles  occa- 
sionally in  the  way  of  the  assembly's  course  ;  but  whether  they 
were  in  the  secret  of  his  policy  or  not,  their  opposition  will  be 
observed  to  have  always  stopt  at  the  point  beyond  which  it 
Avould  have  been  a  declaration  of  war,  and  we  shall  see  the 
emperor  express  neither  open  gratitude  for  their  efforts,  nor 
formal  regrets  for  their  want  of  success.  We  shall  also  see  the 
Cardinal  of  Lorraine,  whether  in  accordance  with  him,  or  at  his 


Chap.  I.  1363.     DE    BIRAGUE   AND   THE   FRENCH   REFORMED.  loS 

own  instance,  enter  definitively  into  the  same  course  of  deference 
.towards  the  pope,  and  oi"  concihation  towards  all. 

This  was  perceived,  on  the  7th  of  June,  on  occasion  of  a 
speech  made  by  the  President  de  Birague,  sent  by  the  court  of 
France,  to  justify  before  the  council  the  peace  that  had  been 
granted  to  the  Protestants.  That  peace,  in  a  Roman  Catholic 
point  of  view,  had  much  need  of  justification.  If  you  arc  asked 
what  a  heretic  is,  and  try  to  define  this,  assumhig  as  a  basis  the 
Roman  anathemas,  you  will  make  him  to  be  a  creature  in  per- 
petual and  voluntary  revolt  against  all  that  is  most  sacred,  a 
species  of  monster,  who  is  less  to  be  dealt  with  in  the  way  of 
covenant  than  the  worst  of  brigands,^  seeing  that  a  robber  may 
go  to  heaven  on  a  single  movement  of  repentance,  whereas  a 
heretic,  unless  he  abjures  heresy,  is  irrevocably  excluded  from  it. 
That  being  so,  it  cannot  but  be  a  crime,  and  an  enormous  crime, 
to  leave  them  in  peace ;  by  so  much  the  stronger  reason  was  it 
criminal  to  have  authorized  them  to  celebrate  their  worship,  and 
to  remain  constituted  in  churches.  The  Roman  Church  has  the 
misfortune  of  finding,  that  she  cannot  be  tolerant,  even  by  halves 
and  provisionally,  without  setting  herself  in  contradiction  with 
the  laws  that  have  emanated  from  her,  and  which  owe  their 
rigour  not  to  passing  necessities,  but  to  principles  which  she  has 
proclaimed,  and  still  proclaims  to  be  necessary,  immutable,  and 
eternal.     With  Protestantism,  consistency  requires  toleration. 

De  Birague  had  represented  peace  as  a  political  necessity,  a 
truce  to  last  only  till  something  better  could  be  had.  But  from 
what  quarter  was  that  better  to  be  expected  ?  From  the  coun- 
cil, he  had  said.  An  old  compliment  which  re-appeared  in  all 
the  harangues,  and  which  Imd  long  ceased  to  be  really  one,  since 
there  never  failed  to  be  added,  or  hinted,  that  if  the  council  was 
to  do  any  good  it  must  be  by  its  beginning  to  be  something  very 
difierent  from  what  it  had  hitherto  been.  The  speaker  had  con- 
cluded, as  was  always  done,  by  disparaging  all  the  counciFs 
doings  hitherto  as  inadequate  to  their  object.  A  great  internal 
reformation  alone  could,  in  his  view,  open  the  way  to  a  return 
of  unity. 

The  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  having  risen  to  speak  on  the  reply 
to  be  made  to  this  communication,  it  was  remarked  that  setting 
aside  all  that  bore  upon  reforms,  he  confined  himself  to  enlarging 
upon  the  political  motives  that  had  been  stated  by  the  ambassa- 
dor. This  he  did  with  great  vigour  and  eloquence.  The  pains 
he  took  to  argue  from  the  ground  of  necessity  alone,  without  giv- 

'  Those  heroic  Yaudois  (Waldenses)  who  have  .suffered  so  much,  and 
forgiven  bo  much,  Tvere  called  by  Gregory  XYL,  in  1832,  "the  scum 
and  opprobrium  of  the  human  race." 


454  HISTORY    OF   THE    COUNCIL    OF   TRENT.  Book  VI. 

ing  the  slightest  place  to  considerations  of  justice,  toleration,  com- 
passion, anything,  in  a  word,  that  could  be  regarded  as  favour- 
able to  the  Protestants,  was  accepted  as  a  pledge  given  to  the 
Roman  party,  as  a  first  step  in  a  course  where  all  was  about  to 
be  smooth. 

Ere  long  he  took  a  second.  The  never-ending  question  of  the 
divine  right,  repelled  under  so  many  forms,  had  never  remained 
a  single  day  without  re-appearing,  sometimes  feebly,  as  if  by 
way  of  memorandum,  sometimes  Avith  fresh  vivacity.  It  then 
became  anew,  for  some  days,  the  only  important  question.  Each 
party  reproduced  its  reasons,  and  after  a  crisis  of  longer  or  shorter 
length,  and  more  or  less  stormy,  each  found  itself  just  where  it 
had  been  before.  The  intermediate  distance  had  not  been  nar- 
rowed by  a  single  hair-breadth. 

The  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  had  said  on  his  arrival,  that  he  was 
for  the  divine  right,  but  that  he  did  not  insist  that  mention 
should  be  made  of  it  in  a  positive  decree.  Afterwards,  without 
openly  contradicting  himself,  he  had  made  common  cause  with 
the  partisans  of  that  opinion;  it  was  too  much  bound  up  with 
all  his  other  views  to  admit  of  his  abandoning  it,  even  had 
he  wished  to  do  so.  On  coming  out  from  a  conference  with  the 
Cardinal  of  Ferrara,  he  himself  had  made  it  known  that  that 
prelate  had  eagerly  urged  him  to  consent  to  a  decree  in  which 
that  question  should  be  eluded,  but  that  he  had  refused  and 
would  ever  refuse.  Great,  therefore,  was  the  surprise,  alike  of 
his  friends  and  his  enemies,  when  on  the  11th  of  June,  at  a 
semi-official  conference  between  the  legates  and  a  score  of  bish- 
ops, he  declared  that  his  opinion  remained  unchanged,  but  that, 
in  order  to  have  done  with  the  matter,  he  had  ceased  to  insist  on 
its  insertion  in  the  decree.  He  interposed  this  condition  only, 
that  no  more  should  the  decree  contain  anything  contrary  to  that 
opinion,  even,  he  added,  to  the  idea  of  the  superiority  of  a  coun- 
cil over  the  pope. 

Thereupon,  notwithstanding  the  joy  that  must  have  been  felt 
by  the  Roman  party  on  receiving  such  an  overture,  great  was 
the  quarrel  that  ensued  on  that  scorching  question  about  the 
authority  of  the  pope.  The  Archbishop  of  Otranto  so  far  lost 
his  temper  as  to  tax  with  heresy  the  opinion  which  he  knew  to 
be  that  of  the  cardinal ;  no  one  but  Lainez  had  as  yet  expressed 
with  such  frankness  his  faith  in  the  absolute  and  full  superiority, 
of  the  pope.  The  cardinal  replied,  but  with  great  moderation, 
and  with  the  evident  intention  of  wounding  nobody.  The  con- 
tention, skilfully  diverted,  then  ran  chiefly  on  the  dispensations. 
As  always — for  there  was  not  a  question  in  which  the  parties 
did  not  revolve  in  a  circle — some  wished  that  there  should  be  . 


Chap  I.  13G3.  SPEECH    OF   LAINEZ.  455 

cases  ill  Avliicli  no  dispeiisaliou  should  be  accorded,  otlicrs  that 
the  pope  should  remain  sole  judge.  Tired  of  the  contention,  the 
parties  paused  ;  but  there  had  been  enough  of  bitterness  betwixt 
the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  and  the  legate  Morone,  who  had  a  few 
days  beibre  accused  him  of  attacking,  in  general  congregation, 
things  that  he  had  in  private  seemed  to  approve.  The  cardinal 
could  perceive,  accordingly,  that  he  had  much  to  be  forgiven, 
and  set  himself  more  and  more  to  obtain  forgiveness.  A  fine 
opportunity  was  now  about  to  present  itself 

On  the  ICtli  of  June,  Lainez  announced  that  lie  would  reply 
to  all  that  had  been  said  or  insinuated  against  the  pope's  author- 
ity. Starting,  accordingly,  from  the  princijDles  announced  in 
his  previous  speech,  he  reviewed  the  various  applications  of  the 
papal  power,  and  endeavoured  to  shew  that  there  is  none  of  them 
that  is  not  of  divine  right.  According  to  him,  to  say  that  a  dis- 
pensation from  the  pope  does  not  discharge  from  an  obligation 
towards  God,  is  to  teach  men  to  put  the  decisions  of  their  con- 
science above  those  of  the  Church,  and  to  throw  themselves,  in 
fact,  on  the  Protestant  principle.  "  Embracing  in  its  univer- 
sality all  times  and  all  men,  the  divine  law  is  irrevocable  ;  but; 
as  for  ecclesiastical  discipline,  whose  precepts  have  for  their  only 
object  the  facilitating  to  men  the  observance  of  the  laws  of  God,^ 
it  may  midergo  modifications,  and  it  is  for  this  end  that  the 
Chm-ch  has  a  head  who  can  dispense  from  the  observance  of  her 
laws.  That  authority  has  been  committed  by  Jesus  Christ  to  the 
pope  ;  none  therefore  can  dispute  his  possession  of  it  without  set- 
ting himself  in  opposition  to  the  will  of  the  founder  of  the  Church., 
A  law  which  should  forbid  the  pope  to  exercise  the  right  of  dis- 
pensmg  would,  by  the  very  fact  of  its  having  had  men  for  its 
authors,  be  revocable  of  its  own  nature  ;  and  althotigh  the  j)oioe 
should  engage  by  a  solemn  oath  never  to  use  that  power,  his 
promise  would  cease  to  be  obligatory  from  the  moment  that 
charity  should  counsel  the  violation  of  it.""- 

Thus  the  only  right  tliat  Lainez  refused  the  pope,  was  that  of 
interdicting  himself  even  by  an  oath,  from  using  the  right  of  dis- 
pensing. Here,  then,  we  have  omnipotence  pushed  to  the  last 
conceivable  extreme,  that  in  which  it  has  not  even  the  power 
of  binding  itself  Li  vain  would  a  pope  swear  to  the  observance 
of  a  law  ;  in  spite  of  his  own  very  will,  he  remains  free  to  vio- 
late that  law. 

As  for  the  council,  ah\ays  according  to  Lainez,  the  pope  being 

^  Alay  we  not  say  that  thei'e  is  the  fundamental  principle  of  Jesuit- 
ism? Its  doirnms,  its  morality,  its  policy,  all  that  it  has  done  of  evil 
or  of  good,  all  is  there. 

-  rallavicini,  Book  xxi.  chap.  vi. 


456  HISTORY    OF   THE    COUNCIL  OF   TRENT.  Book  VI. 

incontestably  superior  to  each  of  the  mejnbers,  one  does  not  see 
how  he  should  not  be  superior  to  the  assembly  itself.  To  him 
alone  belongs  the  power  of  reforming,  if  they  have  need  of  it, 
each  of  the  churches  of  which  the  bishops  compose  the  coun- 
cil ;  it  cannot,  therefore,  be  mamtained  that  those  bishops,  as- 
sembled together,  have  that  of  reforming  the  entire  body  of  the 
Church. 

Never  yet  had  the  bishops  heard  so  frank  a  declaration,  that 
they  were  nothing,  and  could  do  nothing.  The  very  Italians, 
habituated  as  they  were  to  a  sense  of  their  own  nullity,  but  who 
could  not  be  altogether  insensible  of  the  pleasure  of  being  some- 
thing as  members  of  a  council,  thought  these  hard  words.  They 
said  nothing,  however ;  but  the  Spaniards  could  not  repress  their 
impatience,  and  still  less  could  the  French.  What  shocked  them 
most,  was  the  tone  in  which  Lainez  spoke.  He  alone  arrogated 
to  himself  the  right  to  speak  from  the  centre  of  the  hall,  seated 
on  a  chair  that  had  been  brought  for  him.  There  he  sat,  like  a 
professor  in  his  chair,  nay,  almost  like  a  magistrate  on  the  bench 
of  justice.  The  greatest  personages  did  not  obtain  from  him  a 
direct  refutation,  and  his  haughty  looks  formed  a  fit  accompani- 
ment to  the  cold  inflexibility  of  his  language. 

On  that  day,  however,  he  felt  that  he  had  gone  a  little  too  far. 
Having  learnt  that  the  French  prelates  had  met  at  the  Cardinal 
of  Lorraine's  to  deliberate  about  the  course  to  be  taken  after  such 
a  manifesto,  he  sent  them  the  offer  of  an  apolog}^  saying  that  he 
had  not  had  the  least  wish  to  offend  any  one.  That  small  meet- 
ing prepared  itself  to  the  best  of  its  power  ;  all  present,  not  ex- 
cepting Hugo  the  spy,  who  w^as  prompted  either  by  anxiety  to 
conceal  his  connexion  v/ith  the  pope,  or  by  conviction,  spoke 
only  of  attacking  Lainez.  One  recalled  one  passage,  another 
another,  and  all  mutually  exhorted  each  other  to  omit  nothing, 
to  forgive  nothing.  Thus  everything  promised  some  vigorous 
attacks  on  the  following  day.  The  cardinal  seemed  to  approve. 
Then  scruples  gradually  suggested  themselves.  "  What  will  be 
the  result  of  this  contention  ?  The  majority  will  not  on  that 
account  be  the  less  ultramontane,  and  ready  to  vote,  on  being 
pushed  to  it,  in  the  direction  desired  by  the  Jesuit.  What  we 
have  most  to  wish,  is  that  there  should  be  no  voting  at  all." 
These  scruples  insensibly  took  the  form  of  advices  ;  and  the  ad- 
vices of  the  cardinal  were  equivalent  to  orders.  The  prelates 
gave  up  the  idea  of  refuting  Lainez  ;  from  that  moment  the 
legates  and  the  pope  saw  that  the  cardinal  was  entirely  theirs. 

Before  proceeding  farther,  let  us  say  some  words  on  a  quarrel 
foreign  to  the  proper  business  of  the  council,  but  which  had  long 


Chap.  I.  1503.       QDARRliL    (JONCEUNINO    PRECEDENCE.  457 

contributed  to  complicate  all  diliiculties,  and  to  envenom  all  de- 
bates. 

In  all  the  public  ceremonies  of  Europe,  the  pope  or  his  repre- 
sentatives had  the  right  of  figuring  in  the  first  rank,  and  the 
emperor  or  his  representatives  in  the  second.  The  third,  after 
having  long  ])ertained  to  the  king  of  France,  had  been  latterly 
disputed  by  the  king  of  Spain.  Under  Charles  V.,  who  was  at 
once  emperor  antl  king  of  Spain,  there  had  been  no  room  lor 
contention  on  the  subject ;  but  after  having  enjoyed  the  right  of 
precedence  for  forty  years,  the  Spaniards  were  less  than  ever 
disposed  to  yield  it. 

Count  Claud  Gluignones  di  Luna,  ambassador  to  Philip  II., 
had  arrived  about  the  end  of  March,  and  near  two  months  had 
been  spent  in  trying  to  discover  how  an  audience  might  be 
granted  him,  without  giving  him  such  a  place  as  would  not 
oflend  cither  him  or  the  French  ambassadors.  It  was  settled, 
accordingly,  that  for  this  time  he  should  have  a  seat  by  itself, 
in  the  middle  of  the  hall ;  but  it  was  understood  that  this  should 
form  no  precedent  for  or  against  either  party. 

Thus  the  question  remained  entire.  The  legates  referred  it 
to  the  pope,  and,  while  waiting  fur  his  decision,  the  two  rival 
ambassadors  avoided  coming -into  each  other's  presence.  The 
pope  had  submitted  the  atiair  to  a  commission  of  cardinals. 
Their  unanimous  opinion  was  that  in  such  matters,  the  rule  of 
antiquity  is  the  only  one  possible  ;  precedency,  accordingly,  be- 
longed to  the  French.  But,  for  the  moment,  the  publication  of 
a  decision  unfavourable  to  the  only  prince  that  appeared  friendly 
to  both  the  council  and  the  pope,  was  not  to  be  dreamt  of.  After 
several  months  of  deliberation,  an  expedient  was  supposed  to  have 
been  hit  upon  at  last,  but  it  was  thought  prudent  not  to  say  a 
word  about  it,  until  the  moment  of  its  being  put  into  execution. 
On  the  29th  of  June,  St.  Peter's  day,  after  all  present  had  taken 
their  places  in  church,  and  high  mass  w^as  about  to  commence, 
an  arm-chair  appeared,  brought  in  by  footmen,  and  set  down  in 
the  line  of  the  prelates,  between  the  last  cardinal  and  the  first 
patriarch.  At  the  same  instant  the  Spanish  ambassador  arrived 
and  placed  himself  in  it.  Thereupon  great  was  the  buzz  of 
voices.  The  mass  commenced,  but  nobody  attended  to  it.  The 
French  murmured  aloud  ;  they  sent  to  inquire  in  what  manner 
the  oliering  of  incense  was  meant  to  be  arranged,  for,  thought 
they,  then  it  must  be  decided  whether  to  conuuencc  with  France 
or  Spain.  The  legates  replied  that  there  w^ould  be  two  censers ;  on 
which  the  French  declared  that  it  w^as  not  equality  they  wanted, 
but  precedence.  It  being  found  impossible  to  make  them  give 
way,  the  count  was  besought  to  agree  at  least  to  the  incense  being 

U 


458  HISTORY    OF    THE    COUNCIL    OF    TRENT.  Book  VI. 

presented  to  nobody.  He  first  refused,  and  then  consented,  and 
the  mass  was  finished  amid  the  greatest  agitation. 

What  particularly  aggravated  this  affair,  was  that  the  legates 
declared  that  they  acted  only  upon  an  express  order  from  the 
pope.  Pius  IV.,  therefore,  found  himself  directly  implicated  in 
the  quarrel ;  but  while  he  had  at  least  the  approbation  of  the 
Spaniards,  the  legates  were  chagrined  to  see  that  they  had  dis- 
contented everybody — the  Spaniards,  by  not  having  fully  car- 
ried through  the  pope's  decision  in  their  favour,  the  French,  by 
having  kept  it  a  secret,  and  attempted  to  execute  it  by  surprise. 
The  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  was  particularly  shocked  at  such  con- 
duct, he  to  whom  the  promise. Jiad  so  often  been  made,  that 
nothing  would  be  kept  concealed  from  him.  He  complained  of 
it  with  much  warmth  ;  and  when  the  legates  complained  that 
they  could  not  refuse  to  execute  the  pope's  order,  on  the  follow- 
ing Sunday,  should  the  Spanish  ambassador  require  them  to  do 
so,  he  declared  that  he  himself  would  go  up  into  the  pulpit,  and 
call  on  the  prelates  to  leave  the  church,  so  as  not  to  be  witnesses 
or  accomplices  of  such  a  scandal.  The  legates,  in  great  alarm, 
prevailed  with  the  count  not  to  require  anything  for  some  time, 
and  once  more  the  whole  affair  was  remitted  to  the  pope. 

There  had  been  perpetual  conferences  at  the  houses  of  the  am- 
bassadors. The  Spanish  seemed  ready  at  times  to  give  way,  and 
again  would  demand  the  strict  execution  of  the  pope's  decision, 
that  is  to  say,  the  maintenance  of  the  place  that  had  been  given 
him  on  the  29th  of  June,  and  the  sim.ultaneous  presentation  of 
incense.  As  for  the  French  ambassadors,  they  had  made  up 
their  minds  to  protest  and  go  away.  Their  protest,  they  said, 
would  not  be  against  the  legates,  the  king  of  Spain,  or  his  repre- 
sentative, or  against  the  Holy  See,  but  personally  and  directly 
against  the  pope,  the  author,  according  to  them,  of  all  the  mis- 
chief. That  poor  pope,  whom  they  had  persisted  in  speaking  of 
with  a  certain  respect,  as  long  as  they  had  found  themselves  con- 
tending with  hmi  only  on  the  great  interests  of  the  Church,  was 
treated  as  a  monster  from  the  moment  that  he  had  dared  not  to 
be  strictly  just  in  a  question  of  etiquette.  Many  of  the  French 
spoke  of  nothing  less  than  refusing  him  his  very  title  of  pope. 
They  had  in  their  possession,  they  said,  proofs  that  he  had  pur- 
chased votes  at  the  conclave ;  that  thus,  in  terms  of  the  ancient 
canons,  his  election  was  null,  and  null  also,  must  consequently 
be  any  council  convened  by  him.^  Du  Ferrier  drew  up  a  long 
jprotest ;  without  going  so  far,  he  confined  himself  to  represent- 

^  Wlien  Clement  XL,  in  1709,  declared  himself  against  Lewis  XIV., 
the  French  ambassador,  the  Marechal  de  Tesse,  left  Rome  declaring  that 
that  city  was  no  longer  the  seat  of  the  Church. 


Chap.  1.  1303.     THE    FUl'E    THREATENED   BY   THE    FRENCH.  159 

ing  the  pope's  luiviii^^  had  lor  his  sole  object  embroiliiifr  France 
with  8pain.  "  He,  tiie  common  Fatlier  of  Christians,  wished  to 
disinherit  his  eldest  son,  the  king  of  France  ;  making  Scripture 
to  lie,  instead  of  bread  he  gives  him  a  stone,  and  for  a  fish,  a  ser- 
pent. A  man  who  casts  oiV  his  son  is  no  longer  a  father ;  the 
French  can  no  longer  recognise  him  as  such." 

Had  not  this  protest  risked  calling  forth  others,  the  legates 
need  not  have  felt  much  uneasiness  at  so  foolishly  passionate  a 
document.  It  was  too  manifestly  absurd  for  Roman  Cathohcs 
to  think  themselves  authorized  to  call  for  the  dethronement  of 
a  pope,  because  he  had  wronged  them  in  an  aflair  altogether 
human,  and  in  which  he  had  unwillingly  interfered.  But  as  the 
smallest  attack,  even  although  unjust,  might  lead  to  a  terrible 
concussion,  the  legates  made  desperate  efforts  to  prevent  its  get- 
ting abroad.  The  emperor's  ambassadors  communicated  on  the 
subject  with  the  Spanish  ambassador,  and  the  Cardinal  of  Lor- 
raine with  those  of  France.  The  rioour  of  his  first  threats  was 
succeeded  by  too  much  calmness,  not  to  make  it  suspected  that 
there  had  been  an  affectation  of  more  indignation  than  he  really 
felt ;  and  it  was  surmised  that  he  had  caught  at  an  opportunity 
of  making  a  parade,  in  quite  an  accessory  affair,  of  an  independ- 
ence which  he  was  no  longer  prepared  to  exercise  on  essential 
questions.  Notwithstanding  these  suspicions,  which  his  conduct 
was  ere  long  to  change  into  certainty,  he  shewed  enough  of  tes- 
tiness  on  the  subject  of  French  honour,  to  admit  of  the  king  of 
France's  ambassadors  listening  to  what  he  had  to  say.  They 
consented,  accordingly,  to  allow  the  count  the  arm-cliair  that 
had  been  brought  in  for  him  on  the  29th  of  June,  and  the  count, 
on  his  side,  no  longer  pressed  the  subject  of  the  incense.  It  was 
decided  that  this  arrangement  should  be  regarded  as  provisional, 
but  should  be  maintained  until  the  ambassadors  should  have  re- 
ceived new  orders  from  their  masters.  These  orders,  it  was 
tacitly  understood,  were  not  to  arrive  before  the  close  of  the 
council.^ 

We  have  omitted  various  contentions  of  the  same  kind,  that 
had  successively  arisen  between  the  ambassadors  of  Portugal  and 
Hungary,  of  Bavaria  and  of  Venice,  &c.  Without  making  so 
much  noise,  they  had  contributed  not  a  little  to  keep  up  the  pre- 
vailing dissatisfaction  and  irritation. 

'  It  is  known  that  the  question  Avas  not  definillvoly  settled  in  favour 
of  France  until  the  time  of  Lewis  XIV.,  just  a  hundred  years  after. 


CHAPTEE,    11. 

SESSION     XXIII,         DIVINE     RIGHT     OF     BISHOPS,     AND     THE     PAPAL 
POWrER,     BOTH    LEFT    UNDEFINI 
ORDERS    AND    ON    REFORMATION 


PO\\rER,     BOTH    LEFT    UNDEFINED,     AND     WHY  ?        DECREES     ON 


Why  such  an  indisposition  to  vote  on  the  question  of  the  divine  right 
— It  is  definitively  withdrawn — Consequences  of  the  vague  state  in 
■which  it  has  been  left — Disagreement  among  the  doctors — Silence  of 
the  council  on  all  that  relates  to  the  popedom — Is  it  true  that  this 
silence  was  quite  voluntary? — Historical  sketch  of  the  discussions — 
Almost  as  many  questions  omitted  as  decided — An  attempt  made  to 
draw  up  a  table  of  the  functions  of  the  seven  orders — It  fails — The 
council  admits,  ia  spite  of  itself,  the  legitimacy  of  the  suppressions 
made  by  the  Reformation — Thelogical  difficulties — The  Roman  sys- 
tem is  logical  and  clear  only  at  the  surface — The  Spaniards  desist — 
The  legates  are  delighted — Twexty-third  session — Decree  of  Refor- 
mation in  eighteen  chapters — Residence — Conditions  and  formalities 
of  ordination — Conditions  as  to  age — The  seminaries — Historical  re- 
view— The  seminaries  one  of  the  fruits  of  the  Reformation — Marriage 
— Ambiguous  decree. 

T\"hen  this  storm  had  blown  over,  the  council  resumed  its 
labours,  but  with  the  conviction  that  they  would  never  come  to 
an  understanding  on  the  question  of  the  divine  right ;  and  that 
unless  it  were  left  out  altogether,  everything  would  be  brought 
to  a  halt  and  that  indefinitively.  For  the  Roman  party,  as  we 
have  already  said,  it  was  not  a  question  as  to  the  majority  ;  there 
was  no  doubt  that  a  general  voting  would  give  them  the  victory. 
What  made  them  pause,  therefore,  was  the  dread  of  too  strong  a 
minority,  and  of  protests  too  warmly  urged  to  admit  of  their  dar- 
ing to  regard  the  vote  as  finally  settled  ;  and  then  what  was  to 
be  done  ?  "  Nine-tenths  of  the  Fathers,"  says  the  Jesuit  Biner, 
"  were  agreed  in  acknowledging  the  pope's  superiority  to  the 
council,  and  yet,  on  the  reclamations  of  certain  Frenchmen,  it 
was  not  declared."  Nine-tenths,  that  is  saying  a  great  deal ; 
the  anti-Romanists,  at  that  epoch,  formed  at  least  the  fourth 
part  of  the  assembly.  Be  that  as  it  may,  we  cannot  admit  with 
the  author  whom  we  have  quoted,  that  the  council  was  to  be 
commended  for  this.  "Were  it  the  case  of  a  political  assembly, 
we  should   willingly  admit  that  it  would  have  been  prudence, 


Chap.  II.  15G3.      QUESTION    UF   DIVINE   RIUIIT  WITHDRAWN.  401 

reserve,  and  a  wise  respect  for  iLe  minority  ;  but  in  that  of  a 
council,  it  furnishes,  it  would  appear,  far  more  matter  for  blame 
than  praise.  You  admit  that  human  considerations  prevented 
the  votinfj:  of  what  nine-tenths  of  the  assembly,  according  to  you, 
considered  to  be  a  truth  I  tSo  the  Holy  Ghost  quailed  belbre 
"certain  Frenchmen  1"  The  council's  enemies  never  said  any- 
thing stronger  against  its  pretensions  and  its  tribulations. 

It  was  not,  however,  without  difiiculty  that  the  leaders  of  the 
majority  prevailed  on  their  followers  to  be  quiet.  Heated  by 
contention,  and  sure  of  carrying  the  day,  many  Italians  wished 
for  the  vote  ;  but  the  legates,  by  express  orders  from  the  pope, 
compelled  them  to  abandon  their  purpose.  It  was  the  Cardinal 
of  Lorraine  who  took  in  hand  and  proposed  the  omission.  As 
nothing  more,  then,  than  a  motion  on  a  point  of  order  had  to  be 
put,  a  mere  majority  sufficed.  The  vote  was  taken,  and  the 
question  was  dehnitivcly  withdrawn. 

Here,  then,  we  have  this  fundamental  article  of  the  Roman 
hierarchy  shoved  away  for  ever  among  the  uncertain  points  of 
the  system.  With  the  decrees  of  Trent  in  his  hand,  the  bishop 
you  may  consult  will  answer  you  without  hesitation,  without 
possibility  of  error,  according  to  him,  on  a  multitude  of  subjects 
which  revelation  docs  not  teach,  and  which  man  is  quite  incom- 
petent to  see  or  to  know  ;  but  ask  him  if  he  is  by  divine  right 
superior  to  priests,  and  whether  it  is  from  God  or  from  the  pope 
that  he  holds  his  power  ?  he  will  hold  his  peace.  If  he  speaks, 
he  can  but  give  you  his  private  opinion.  Did  it  appear  to  you 
to  be  good,  and  had  you  nothing  to  reply,  you  might  always  ob- 
ject that  it  is  his  opinion,  that  he  cannot  warrant  its  correct- 
ness, that  his  Church,  in  fine,  makes  herself  infallible,  and  con- 
venes councils  only  to  leave  in  uncertainty  a  subject  even  of  that 
importance.  The  certainty  which  Rome  maintains  that  she 
alone  is  in  a  condition  to  give,  the  bishop  has  not,  and  without 
a  new  council  never  will  have,  on  what  every  man  called  to  any 
ministry  whatever,  has  most  need  to  know,  the  nature,  namely, 
and  the  source  of  his  authority.  Will  he  maintain  that  it  suffices 
lor  him,  in  practice,  to  speak  and  to  act  in  the  name  of  the 
Church  ?  He  is  neither  elected  nor  instituted  by  her  ;  he  does 
not  receive  from  her  any  commission.  Then,  the  question  is  not 
one  of  practice,  but  one  of  right.  From  whom  does  he  receive 
his  commission  to  speak  in  the  name  of  the  Church  ?  That  is 
the  question.  Will  he  reply  that  he  receives  it  Irom  the  pope  ? 
That  again  is  true  ;  but  true  actually,  true  in  fact,  and  M'hat  he 
must  be  able  to  say  is,  that  it  is  true  in  point  of  right,  true  ab- 
solutely, and  it  is  here  that  the  want  of  haraiony  commences. 
At  Fribourg,  "  every  bishop  who  has  not  been  instituted,  or  re- 


462  HISTORY  OF  THE  COUNCIL  OF  TRENT.  Book  VI. 

cognised  by  the  pope,  is  an  intruder,  a  false  pastor."^  At  some 
leagues  from  Fribourg,  "  legitimate  bishops  are  those  who  are  in- 
stituted according  to  the  rules  of  the  Church,  and  who  are  in 
communion  with  the  pope.  According  to  the  present  discipline 
of  the  Church,  which  has  been  in  force  for  several  centuries,  it  is 
our  Holy  Father,  the  pope,  who  institutes  bishops."^  Between 
these  two  teachings,  though  indentical  in  their  present  results, 
the  distance  is  great,  it  is  immense.  In  the  one  the  pope  is  the 
source  ;  in  the  other  he  is  only  the  channel,  and  even  the  present 
channel  only  ;  the  Church  might  delegate  to  others,  did  she 
think  fit,  the  power  to  institute  bishops.  It  is,  accordingly,  as 
if  in  one  and  the  same  state,  two  political  catechisms  were  to 
teach,  the  one,  that  authority  emanates  from  the  prince,  the  other, 
that  it  emanates  from  the  people.  It  were  in  vain  that  the  prac- 
tical results  were  momentarily  the  same — who  would  assert  that 
the  two  authors  were  agreed  ?  Who  would  think  the  difference 
of  their  ■vdews  unimportant  ?  This,  however,  is  what  has  to  be 
done  in  order  to  save  the  unity  of  the  Roman  Church.  But 
even  although  common  sense  were  not  to  exclaim  that  this  ques- 
tion is  on  the  contrary  at  the  basis  of  all,  let  it  be  remembered 
how  the  council  devoted  more  time  to  it,  and  threw  itself  with 
more  ardour  into  it  than  any  other,  falling  back  upon  it,  in  spite 
of  itself,  at  every  turn — and  then,  after  all  this,  let  people  say,  if 
they  can,  that  it  was  thrown  aside  because  it  was  thought  of  no 
moment. 

But  it  was  not  only  on  the  popedom  viewed  in  its  relations 
with  the  episcopate,  but  on  the  popedom  itself,  its  essence,  its 
origin,  its  place  in  the  hierarchy  and  in  the  Church,  that  our 
council  maintained  the  most  complete  silence.  We  have  already 
remarked  this  ;  but  we  would  also  call  attention  to  the  contra- 
riety to  facts,  to  be  found  in  the  answer  that  Romanists  have 
had  to  make  to  the  arguments  deduced  from  this  strange  omis- 
sion. "  If  the  council,"  it  is  said,  "  has  taught  nothing  on  this 
point,  it  is  because  the  supremacy  of  the  pope  had  appeared  to 
it  to  be  sufficiently  established  by  the  ^^niversal  assent  of  the 
Church."  Nothing  is  less  true.  For  first,  the  council  nowise 
restricted  itself  to  speaking  only  of  things  that  required  to  be 
fixed.  We  have  seen  it  teach  many  things  in  which,  for  a  long 
while,  there  had  been  no  want  of  certainty  among  Roman  Cath- 
olics. There  was  not,  therefore,  any  reason  on  that  ground  for 
its  not  having  spoken  of  the  pope.  In  the  second  place,  Ave  have 
seen  that  the  assembly  always  preferred  attaching  itself  to  those 
points  that  were  attacked  by  the  Protestants.  Now,  what  had 
they  attacked  more  keenly  than  the  pope  ?      On  what,  then, 

^  Fribourg  Catechism.  *  Catechism  of  St.  Claude. 


CuAP.  Jl.  1503.     WHY    THE    QUESTION    WAS   NOT   DrXlDED.  463 

would  it  liavc  been  more  natural  to  confound  tliem  and  anath- 
ematize tlioni  ?      In  line,  let  us  proceed  to  facts.      In  order  to 
maintain  that  if  the  council  omitted  this  point,  it  wan  because 
it  saw  no  need  of  speaking  about  it,  one  must  be  able  to  say  that 
the  council  had  decided  from  the  first  that  it  should  be  set  aside, 
and  that  there  had  been  no  attempt  to  give  it  any  place  in  the 
decree.     Far  from  that ;  from  the  first  presentation  of  the  articles 
on  the  sacrament  of  orders,  that  is  to  say,  eight  months  before 
the  session  in  which  we  have  seen  that  they  were  published,  it 
was  proposed  that  one  should  be  drawn  up  on  the  pope.     'No 
formula  was  as  yet  officially  proposed,  but  none  of  the  speakers 
seemed  to  think  that  they  could  dispense  with  looking  for  one  ; 
to  speak  of  the  pope  on  the  occasion  of  the  sacrament  of  orders, 
seemed  as  natural  in  their  eyes  as  to  speak  of  the  mass  when 
the  eucharist  was  under  discussion.  -   After  five  weeks'  debating, 
during  which  the  question  of  the  popedom  was  not  for  a  single 
day  separated  from  that  of  the  priesthood  in  general,  the  Car- 
dinal of  Lorraine  proposed  two  canons,  one  of  which  declared 
the  bishops  to  be  instituted  by  divine  right,  Avhile   the  other 
anathematized  the  opinion  "  that  St.  Peter  had  not  been  estab- 
hshed  Prince  of  the  Apostles,  supreme  vicar  of  Jesus  Christ ; 
that  a  sovereign  pontiff  is  not  necessary ;  that  the  legitimate 
successors  of  St.  Peter  have  not  constantly  held  the  primacy  of 
the  Church,"     Attacked  by  some  as  giving  too  much  to  the 
pope,  by  others  as  not  giving  him  enough,  that  article  served  as 
the  topic  of  discussion  for  a  month.     It  was  communicated  by 
the  legates  to  the  pope  ;  the  pope  added  to  it  what  he  considered 
to  be  M^anting,  and  sent  it  back  to  the  legates.     In  the  new  draft 
of  it,  there  was  anathema  to  whosoever  should  say,  "  that  the 
legitimate  successors  of  St.  Peter  have  not  constantly  been  the 
fathers,  the  pastors,  the  teachers  of  all  Christians,  and  that  there 
has  not  been  given  them  by  Jesus  Christ,  in  the  person  of  St. 
Peter,  full  power  to  rule  and  govern  the  universal   Church." 
And  on  this  new  ground  the  discussion  was  continued  for  three 
months.      Thus  it  remains  an  unquestionable  fact  that  neither 
bishops  nor  legates,  neither  the  pope  nor  any  one,  had  the  inten- 
tion originally  of  not  speaking  ot"  the  pope  ;  that  thus,  as  we 
have  asserted,  the  sole  cause  of  the  silence  observed  in  the  coun- 
cil's decrees  on  that  head,  was  the  impossibility  of  coming  to  a 
common  understanding  upon  it.     The  best  proof,  in  fine,  that 
they  did  not  consider  themselves  to  be  agreed  by  the  sole  fact  of 
their  being  so,  in  the  gross,  on  the  primacy  of  the  pope,  is,  that 
it  was  never  once  proposed  that  they  should  get  rid  of  the  diffi- 
culty by  adopting  an  article  in  which  they  should  acknowledge, 
in  two  words,  that  primacy.     The  least  scrupulous  felt  that  i\ 


464  HISTORY   OF   THE   COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  VI. 

would  be  ridiculous  to  merge  under  one  term  the  profoundly  di- 
verse opinions  which  had  come  to  light  in  interpreting  it.  Is 
there  any  better  agreement  upon  it  at  the  present  day  ?  It 
would  appear  so.  But  not  the  less  is  it  an  historical  fact  that 
the  Council  of  Trent  did  not  dare,  or  was  not  able,  after  several 
months  of  efibrt,  to  teach  anything  on  the  subject  of  the  pope.^ 

The  grand  obstacle  was  now  taken  out  of  the  way.  In  put- 
ting their  hands,  in  order  to  have  done  with  it,  to  the  omission 
of  a  point  of  such  importance,  each  party  had,  in  some  sort, 
taken  an  engagement  to  abandon  in  like  manner  every  question 
on  which  inability  to  come  to  an  agreement  was  dreaded.  "We 
shall  have  to  notice  that  thenceforward,  to  the  close  of  the  coun- 
cil, almost  as  many  questions  were  omitted  as  there  were  ques- 
tions decided. 

The  first  thing  done  was  to  take  from  the  draft  of  the  decree 
on  residence  everything  that  could  shock  either  the  partisans  or 
the  adversaries  of  the  divine  right.  Residence  was  found  not  to 
have  been  ordained  either  by  the  pope  or  by  God  ;  the  council 
confined  itself  to  prescribing  it  as  natural  and  necessary.  This 
was  in  many  respects  the  best  thing  that  could  be  done,  for  there 
is  no  better  way  of  recommending  a  duty  than  by  frankly  re- 
ferring it  without  any  cavilling,  to  the  sacred  law  of  duty  ;  but 
there  was  wherewithal  to  make  them  a  little  confounded  at  the 
thought,  that  they  had  for  years  been  quarrelling  about  resi- 
dence, only  to  say  at  last  what  might  have  been  said  the  first 
day  they  began,  had  they  but  contrived  to  keep  to  plain  common 
sense. 

After  having  decreed  the  seven  orders,  it  would  have  been 
natural  to  point  out  the  different  functions  attached  to  them. 
The  attempt  was  made  ;  but  the  enumeration,  elaborated  at 
great  length,  was  found  so  unlike  the  actual  state  of  things,  that 

^  "What  a  contrast  betwixt  this  silence  and  the  boldness  of  the  popes 
when  they  have  to  dogmatize  on  the  misty  origin  of  their  pretended 
rights !  Hear  Alexander  A"II.  writing  to  the  University  of  Louvain : 
"That  excellent  precept,  so  often  inculcated  by  the  Saviours  voice,  to 
keep  the  Church's  commandments,  and  to  listen  to  the  voice  of  the 
pastor  whom  he  has  established  his  vicar."  And  yet  this  is  what  Car- 
dinal Pacca  quoted,  fifteen  3'ears  ago,  as  an  oracle.  If  there  be  no  small 
audacity  in  even  so  much  as  asserting  that  Jesus  Christ  ever  intended 
to  create  for  himself  a  vicar,  what  term  shall  we  apply  to  the  incon- 
ceivable impudence  with  which  a  pope  dares  to  affirm  that  the  order 
to  obey  him  was  put  into  set  form,  was  inculcated,  and  that  so  often,  by 
the  very  voice  of  the  Saviour!  With  these  lines  in  one  hand,  and  the 
Scriptures  in  another,  there  is  enough  to  disgust  with  the  popedom 
whosoever  detests  fraud,  and  has  also  the  courage  to  exercise  his  powers 
of  reflection. 


CiiAi'.  If.  15G3.  ORDERS— PROTESTANTS   JUSTIFIED.  4G5 

it  was  soon  seen  to  be  absolutely  impossible  to  embody  it  in  a 
law.  For  several  centuries,  in  fact,  the  three  major  orders  (sub- 
diaconate,  diaconate,  and  priesthood)  were  the  only  ones  the  ex- 
istence of  which  was  not  purely  nominal.  The  impo.ssibility  of" 
finding  for  all  churches  a  porter  and  an  acolyte  in  orders,  had 
led  to  their  being  replaced  by  laymen,  often  by  children.  Even 
in  churches  provided  with  that  kind  of  ministers,  it  was  not  they, 
but  beadles,  sacristans,  singing  boys,  as  is  generally  the  case  to 
this  day,  that  watched  the  doors,  took  care  of  the  churcli  mate- 
rials, served  at  the  altars,  &cc.^  To  decree  that  these  should  re- 
ceive orders  corresponding  to  their  functions,  would  have  been 
to  incorporate  them  with  the  clergy,  a  course  which  would  have 
had  great  inconveniences  ;  to  decree  that  the  titulars  should  con- 
descend to  discharge  such  humble  functions,  would  have  been  to 
lower  the  sacerdotal  dignity,  for  it  would  have  been  hopeless  to 
attempt  leading  people  to  regard  as  honourable  and  sacred  what 
they  never  could  recollect  having  seen  done  by  any  but  domes- 
tics. On  the  other  hand,  to  do  nothing  towards  preventing  these 
four  orders  from  falling  definitively  into  desuetude,  would  have 
been  to  admit  that  the  Protestants  had  been  in  the  right  when 
they  abolished  them  as  useless.  A  middle  course,  therefore,  was 
adopted,  Setting  aside  all  details  as  to  the  functions  of  these 
orders,  it  was  decreed,  in  principle,  that  they  should  be  exercised 
only  by  persons  regularly  ordained.  The  application  of  this  rule 
was  then  restricted  to  cathedral,  collegiate,  and  parochial 
churches,  i/i  so  fa?'  as  can  conveiiiently  be  done?  It  was 
added,  in  fine,  that  in  default  of  ordained  and  mimarried  men, 
any  man  of  good  morals,  provided  he  was  not  a  bigamist,  might 
exercise  these  functions.  The  council,  accordingly,  did  no  more, 
upon  the  whole,  than  consecrate  what  usage  had  everywhere 
established.  This  was  Avise  ;  but  to  recognise  so  openly  the 
possibility  of  dispensing  with  ordained  porters,  readers,  exorcists, 
and  acolytes,  was  but  a  pitiful  way  of  attaining  the  object  indi- 
cated in  the  preamble  of  the  decree  :  "  Lest  these  functions 
should  be  traduced  by  heretics  as  tending  to  idleness."-^  More- 
over, after  such  large  concessions,  what  becomes  of  the  canon  in 
which  the  admission  of  the  seven  orders  is  ranked  among  points 
of  faith  ?  How  can  one  pronounce  an  anathema  to  whosoever 
shall  not  acknowledge  seven,  while  admittinof  that  there  are  four 
that  the  Church  can  dispense  with,  and  with  which  it  actually 
does  dispense  ? 

^  The  functions  of  reader  and  exorcist,  considerably  curtailed,  were 
discharged  by  the  priests. 

^  Quantum  fieri  commode  poterit, 

^  Ne  ab  htereticis,  tamquam  otiosa,  traducantur. 


466  HISTORY   OF   THE    COUNCIL    OF   TRENT.  Book  VI. 

This  admission  is  not  less  serious  as  tending  to  confirm  all  that 
we  have  said  on  the  theological  difficulties  of  the  sacrament  of 
orders.  If  the  seven  orders  are  so  many  parts  of  one  same  sac- 
rament, and  if,  nevertheless,  there  are  several  whose  functions 
can  be  performed  by  laymen,  where  shall  we  set  the  limit  to 
this  ?  At  what  point  shall  the  intermixture  of  laymen  begin 
decidedly  to  be  a  sacrilege  ?  What  notion  shall  we  form  of  a 
sacrament,  one  sole  and  perfect  sacrament,  in  which  some  parts 
are  of  an  indispensable  and  absolute  necessity,  while  certain 
others  are  useless  ?  Viewed  in  the  light  of  discipline  and  good 
order,  the  Church  has  reason  incontestably  to  desire  that  certain 
charges  shall  fall  exclusively  to  her  ministers  ;  what  w^e  wish  to 
say  is,  that  if  necessity  suffices  for  authorizing  a  layman  to  dis- 
charge the  functions  of  four  orders,  one  does  not  see  any  more 
why  the  same  reason  should  not  authorize  him  to  discharge  the 
functions  of  five,  six,  or  seven,  and  why,  for  example,  in  a  desert 
island,  some  shipwrecked  seamen  might  not  choose  one  among 
themselves  to  dispense  to  them  the  supper.  Here,  then,  we  are 
brought  back,  by  another  road,  to  the  objection  that  had  already 
presented  itself  to  us  in  the  question  of  baptism.  If  a  layman 
can  baptise,  we  said,  it  cannot  be  logically  maintained,  even 
although  the  apostolic  history  should  not  prove  the  contrary,  that 
he  is  radically  unfit  to  administer  every  other  sacrament.  If  a 
layman,  we  now  say,  may  discharge  certain  parts  of  the  sacra- 
ment of  orders,  which  is  one  sacrament,  on  what  ground  shall  he 
be  declared  radically  and  absolutely  unfit  for  the  functions  con- 
ferred by  the  rest  of  the  sacrament  ?  a  ncAV  proof  in  support  of 
what  we  have  so  often  had  occasion  to  repeat,  that  the  clear- 
ness of  the  Romish  theories  is  found  oftenest  at  the  surface,  and 
that  there  is  no  need  of  going  very  deep  in  order  to  find  embar- 
rassments and  obscurities. 

By  dint  of  omissions,  hopes  began  to  be  indulged  that  the 
session  might  take  place  on  the  day  fixed,  to  wit,  the  15th  of 
July,  1563.  The  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  had  got  his  part  acted 
out,  and  it  was  no  fault  of  his  if  the  council  was  not  ready  sev- 
eral days  sooner.  Unfortunately  the  Spaniards  had  not  yet  all 
given  in,  and  did  not  speak  of  doing  so.  In  the  congregation  of 
the  9th,  the  Archbishop  of  Grenada  took  it  upon  himself  once 
more  to  say  that  it  was  shameful  to  have  so  long  amused  the 
fathers  on  the  subject  of  the  divine  right,  only  to  leave  it  at  last 
unresolved.  He  declared  that  neither  he  nor  his  friends  would 
ever  change  their  opinion  ;  that  it  was,  in  their  eyes,  not  only 
an  error,  but  a  heresy,  to  think  otherwise.  He  well  kncAv,  how- 
ever, that  that  heresy  was  the  opinion  of  the  court  of  Rome  and 


CiiAi-.  II.  15C3.  THE    SPANIARDS    STILL   IIOLl*  OUT.  467 

of  the  majority  of  the  council.     How  did  he  contrive  to  reconcile 
all  this  with  conscicnlious  views  as  a  Roman  Catholic  and  an 
archbishop  ?     And  when  he  spoke  of  never  changing  his  opinion, 
what  then  did  he  mean  to  do,  if  the  council,  in  accordance  with 
the  pope,  had  decided  the  question  in  a  sense  the  reverse  of 
his  own  ?     On  the  day  before  the  session,  he  again  waited  on 
the  Count  di  Luna,  to  exhort  and  to  protest,  in  the  name  of  Spain, 
against  the  omission  of  the  decree  which  he  and  his  colleagues 
were  resolved  to  call  for  up  to  the  last  moment.     Strange,  indeed, 
would  have  been  the  spectacle  of  an  ambassador  protesting  in 
favour  of  a  dogma  ;  already  it  was  odd  enough  to  see  bishops 
asking  him  to  take  such  a  step,  and  we  might  join  this  fact  to 
all  those  that  have  appeared  to  us  to  show  how  little  common 
understanding  there  was,  at  that  epoch,  on  the  nature  and  ihe 
extent  of  the  authority  of  a  council.     The  count  refused  to  com- 
ply ;  he  even  tried,  but  in  vain,  to  divert  his  countrymen  from 
their  projected  protest.      The  legates  ignored  this  conference  ; 
they  thought  themselves  at  the  end  of  their  labours.     "At  the 
moment  they  were  closing  the  dispatches  which  they  were  send- 
ing off  to  Rome  to  announce  the  joyful  news,  they  received  a 
message  from  the  Spanish  ambassador.     It  was  to  inform  them 
that  he  had  made  great  efforts,  but  in  vain,  in  order  to  induce 
his  countrymen  to  give  way  ;  he  thought  that,  consequently,  the 
session  could  not  be  held  without  the  risk  of  giving  oflence  to  the 
whole  of  Spain.  "1     The  legates  persisted.     They  called  a  last  gen- 
eral congregation.     Italians,  French,  Germans,  and  others,  with 
the  exception  of  six,  adopted  unanimously  the  decrees  as  they 
had   been   arranged ;   the   Spaniards   were   immovable.      They 
voted  in   silence,  but  were   to   protest  in   full   session.     Anxi- 
ety was  now  at  its  highest  pitch  ;  the  legates  deliberated  ;  they 
durst  neither  hold  the  session  nor  put  it  off.     AThat  was  to  be 
done  ?     The  ambassador  was  to  be  implored  to  make  another 
effort  with  the  rebel  prelates.     He  saw  them,  accordingly,  once 
more  ;    besought,  urged,  conjured  them,   and,  at  last,   wrested 
from  them,  in  the  evening,  the  promise  not  to  protest  next  day. 
Let  us  now  hear  Pallavicini.     The  delight  felt  at  this  news  by 
the  legates  seems  to  have  become  his  own  ;  his  style  rises  into 
poetry.     "  The  legates,"  he  says,  "  had  laid  themselves  down  that 
they  might  taste  that  rest  which  has  long  to  be  waited  for,  even 
on  a  bed  of  down,  when  the  mind  is  tormented  by  an  excruciating 
sting,  at  the  moment  they  received  this  joyful  ncAVs.      To  them 
it  was  hke  the  intoxicating  liquor  with  which  Homer  inebriates 
his  heroes.     They  did  taste  a  few  moments'  sleep  until  Aurora 
called  them  to  a  session,  the  fruit  of  so  many  fatigues  a-nd  per- 

'  Pnll.ivioini,  Hoolv  x\i.  oh.  11. 


468  HISTORY  OF   THE    COUNCIL   OF   TEENT.  Book  VI. 

spirations,  the  object  of  such  hvely  and  such  various  hopes. 
Very  ignorant  or  very  mahcious  must  be  the  man  vv^ho  should 
accuse  nature,  as  an  unjust  stepmother,  for  having  given  this 
pleasure  at  the  cost  of  so  much  fatigue  and  suffering  !  Just  as 
the  bee  distils  the  sweetness  of  its  honey  from  the  bitterness  of  the 
thyme,  so  by  present  toils  we  prepare  matter  for  future  joys." 
Here,  truly,  is  a  grandiloquent  way  of  telling  us  that  the  legates 
had  been  in  great  trepidation,  and  it  is  the  first  time,  to  our 
knowledge,  that  people  ever  thought  of  proclaiming  a  victory 
when  they  had  only  escaped  from  having  a  battle. 

After  ten  months  of  delays,  accordingly,  this  famous  twenty- 
third  session  took  place  July  15,  1563,  The  Spaniards  kept 
their  word.  They  did  not  protest,  and  the  greater  number  even 
voted  without  making  any  observations.  Three  or  four,  that 
they  might  not  seem  to  abandon  their  old  opinions,  declared  that 
they  voted  in  the  hope  that  the  council  would,  ere  long,  develop 
what  required  development.  They  well  knew  that  that  would 
not  be  done. 

The  reformation  decree  contained  eighteen  chapters. 

"VYe  have  spoken  of  the  first,  that  on  residence.  Full  of  good 
things,  but  of  exhortations  rather  than  of  orders,  it  could  not 
have,  and  actually  has  not  had,  any  more  effect  than  that  of  the 
sixth  session.  Amonsf  the  letjitimate  motives  for  non-residence, 
there  had  been  put  the  "  service  of  the  Church  ;"  to  which  the 
Cardinal  of  Lorraine,  who  never  forgot  himself,  had  caused  to  be 
added  '"  the  service  of  the  State."  Obligation  to  residence,  how- 
ever, on  the  part  of  the  cardinals,  not  without  much  opposition 
on  the  part  of  the  ultra-Romanists,  was  inserted  in  the  decree. 

The  subsequent  chapters  regulated  the  disciplinary  conditions 
and  formalities  of  ordination,  whether  for  bishops  or  for  priests. 
The  twelfth  fixed  that  no  one  should  be  made  sub-deacon  under 
twenty-two  years  of  age,  deacon  before  twenty-three,  and  priest 
before  twenty-four.  The  sixth,  that  no  benefice  could  be  obtain- 
ed by  any  one  under  fourteen  years.  As  they  were  frequently 
given  to  perfect  children,  this  rule  shewed  some  progress ;  but 
it  is  clear  that  at  the  same  time  it  sanctioned  a  serious  abuse. 
A  boy  of  fourteen  is  no  more  capable  of  being  an  abbot  than  one 
of  tv/elve  or  of  six.  It  had  been  put  into  the  first  draft  that 
bishops  appointed  by  princes  should,  after  being  instituted  by  the 
pope,  be  examined  by  the  metropolitan  ;  but  this  security  had 
been  rejected  by  the  Italians  as  contrary  to  the  pope's  independ- 
ence, and  by  foreign  prelates  as  calculated  to  give  offence  to  the 
secular  princes.  Those  chapters,  in  short,  comprise  some  excel- 
lent regulations,  to  which  nothing  has  been  found  wanting  but 
1,]i(?ir  being  bettor  executed. 


Chap.  U.  1503.  INSTITUTION   OF   SEMINARIES.  469 

In  the  fifteenth,  it  was  said  tliat  no  priest,  secular  or  regular, 
should  confess  in  any  diocese  without  the  sanction  of  the  bishop  ; 
an  important  law  which  the  bishops  had  vainly  solicited  in  the 
early  times  of  the  conncil. 

The  sixteenth  bore  that  no  priest  should  be  ordained  without 
being  attached  to  a  church.  Many  of  the  prelates  had  asked 
that  it  should  be  the  same  with  bishops,  but  the  Roman  party 
had  insisted  on  preserving  for  the  pope  the  right  to  confer  the 
episcopate  as  an  honorary  title. 

The  seventeenth  treated  of  the  minor  orders.  Of  these  we 
have  already  spoken.  In  the  eighteenth,  in  fine,  the  institution 
of  seminaries  is  handled.     Let  us  pause  for  a  moment  at  it. 

Had  the  Council  of  Trent  produced  nothing  but  this  decree,  we 
are  told  it  would  have  earned  perpetual  claims  to  the  Church's 
gratitude.  Possibly  so.  The  idea  was  beautiful,  it  was  great ; 
we  shall  not  stop  to  recall  how  many  inconveniences,  neverthe- 
less, are  found  to  be  combined  in  them  with  incontestable  ad- 
vantages. We  shall  only  ask  why  it  was  that  such  a  decree 
should  still  have  remained  to  be  made.  With  all  her  power, 
and  all  her  wealth,  the  Roman  Church  had  never  yet  seriously 
set  herself  to  secure  for  her  ministers  an  education  worthy  of 
their  calling.  All  had  dwindled  down,  on  this  point,  to  some 
vague  injunctions,  a  few  ancient  canons,  fixing  the  minimum  of 
learning,  or  rather  the  maximum  of  ignorance,  which  the  candi- 
dates might  bring  with  them,  and  even  those  rules  were  con- 
stantly violated.  The  slight  mental  cultivation  enjoyed  by  so 
many  priests  at  this  day,  particularly  in  countries  altogether 
Roman  Catholic  and  not  in  contact  with  better  educated  na- 
tions, sufficiently  shews  what  they  must  have  been  before  the 
institution  of  seminaries,  and  at  an  epoch  when  to  be  able  to  read 
was  sufficient  to  place  a  man  above  nine-tenths  of  the  population. 
At  all  epochs  there  have  been  learned  men  ;  but  how  many  ? 
Beyond  the  universities  and  the  higher  charges,  that  is  to  say, 
thoughout  nearly  the  entire  body  of  the  inferior  clergy,  hardly 
can  we  discover  here  and  there  a  man  that  participated  in  the 
feeble  enlightenment  of  his  age.  The  Reformation,  on  the  con- 
trary, had  no  sooner  enjoyed  some  moments  of  peace,  than  it 
made  the  utmost  endeavours  to  secure  for  itself  educated  and 
capable  pastors.  If  it  had  not  established  seminaries — having 
always  thought  these,  not  without  reason,  much  too  like  monas- 
teries— it  had  everywhere  founded  schools,  which,  in  a  few  years, 
rivalled  the  ancient  universities.  The  Roman  Church  had  been 
struck  Avith  this.  She  felt  herself  carried  along,  like  the  Avorld 
around  her,  towards  an  epoch  in  Avhicli  ignoramuses  would  be 
left  on  the  back-ground.     AYithout  waiting  for  the  orders  or  the 


470  HISTORY   OF  THE  COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  VI. 

aid  of  a  council,  several  bishops  had  already  made  efforts  to  pro- 
cure priests  a  little  less  below  their  calling.  Seminaries,  in  fact, 
already  existed ;  the  council  had  only  to  generalize  their  estab- 
lishment. The  bishops  were  authorized  to  raise  from  Church 
revenues  of  every  kind  the  sums  required  in  order  to  cover  the 
expense.  It  was  ordained  at  the  same  time  that  every  theo- 
logical canon  should  be  bound  to  discharge  in  those  schools  the 
teaching  functions  already  attached  to  that  title,  or  to  find,  at 
his  own  expense,  a  capable  substitute.  The  whole  decree  is 
very  well  conceived ;  we  have  thought  it  therefore  of  conse- 
quence to  show  how  much  the  Reformation  had  contributed  to 
render  it  necessary,  and  to  prepare  matters  for  its  being  carried 
into  execution. 


CHAPTER    III. 

SESSION    XXIV.    CARDINAL    LORRAIXK    VISITS    ROME.       DECREES    ON 
MARRIAGE,    DIVORCE,    AND    THE    REFORM    OE    THE    CLERGY. 

Forty  articles  presented  to  tlie  ambassadors — Why  so  many  cardinals 
Italians,  and  always  an  Italian  pope — The  princes  think  of  taking 
their  guarantees  against  the  bishops — Pius  IV.  urges  matters  to  a 
close — Intervention  of  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine — His  journey  to  Rome 
— Draft  of  decree  on  the  princes — Exorbitant  pretensions — Du  Fer- 
rier's  protest — The  council  more  than  ever  a  chaos — An  explanation 
of  the  proponentibus  consented  to — A  congregation  in  confusion — 
TwENxy-FOURTii  SESSION  held,  in  greater  confusion  still — Pallavicini's 
success — Objections  to  twelve  anathemas  of  the  decree  on  marriage 
— Contradictions,  incoherencies,  shifts,  and  quibbles — Why  was  the 
indissolubleness  of  marriage  not  formally  taught — Disciplinary  arti- 
ticles — Clandestine  marriages,  dispensations,  &c. — Reformatory  arti- 
cles— Elections,  provincial  and  diocesan  councils — Visits,  preaching, 
censures,  draft  of  a  catechism,  penances,  salaries,  competitions,  ecclesi- 
astical procedure — Why,  after  so  many  decrees,  did  people  still  com- 
plain of  the  insufficiency  of  the  council? 

Still,  its  utility  was  not  so  very  evident  as  to  prevent  the  pub- 
lic from  exclaiming  against  the  barren  results  of  a  session  pre- 
pared for  at  such  length,  and  so  laboriously.  The  dispute  about 
the  divine  right  had,  during  the  whole  of  that  time,  kept  all  the 
divines,  all  the  universities,  all  Europe,  on  the  stretch  of  expec- 
tation. It  had  been  seen,  with  redoubled  interest,  to  reach  by 
slow  degrees  the  domain  of  the  popedom  itself;  friends  and 
enemies  were  alike  kept  in  a  state  of  inexpressible  suspense. 
Accordingly,  even  after  the  decree  had  been  for  some  days  before 
everybody's  eyes,  people  still  continued  to  ask  themselves  if  the 
council  could  have  dared  to  say  nothing  on  such  a  subject. 

At  Trent,  as  it  was  much  to  be  dreaded  that  the  discussion 
might  recommence,  the  decree  on  marriage,  already  elaborated, 
was  resumed  without  delay.  It  had  been  thrown  aside,  in  the 
last  instance,  not  only  because  the  other  absorbed  all  the  councifs 
attention  and  time,  but  also  on  accouni  of  the  difficulties  found 
in  it.  No  subject  had,  in  fact,  occurred  as  yet,  in  which  doctrine 
and  discipline  were  more  mingled,  and  we  have  already  seen  how 
many  inconveniences  arose  from  this  medley.  No  sooner  was  it 
resumed  than  the  same  difficulties  occurred,  augmented  by  all 
the  arguments  for  or  against  each  opinion  which  a  long  delay 
had  allowed  the  parties  to  prepare.    The  most  delicate  question, 


4^72  HISTORY    OF    THE    COUNCIL    OF   TRENT.  Book  VI. 

we  have  said,  was  that  of  the  vahdity  of  maniages  contracted 
Avithout  the  intervention  of  the  civil  power.  The  council  durst 
not  pronounce  them  good  ;  and  yet,  in  spite  of  all  the  distinctions 
imagined  in  order  to  explain  how  a  sacrament  can  be  null  with- 
out any  of  its  religious  elements  being  wanting,  logic  continually 
returned  to  the  charge.  People  said,  in  spite  of  themselves,  that 
if  marriage  be  a  sacrament,  the  omission  of  civil  formalities  can 
no  more  make  it  be  considered  as  null,  than  it  could  prevent 
transubstantiation  from  taking  place  wherever  a  legitimate  priest 
shall  pronounce  the  sacramental  words  of  consecration  over  the 
wafer.  One  might  have  gone  even  farther  than  this,  for  if  the 
Church  cannot  make  the  consecrated  wafer  to  become  bread 
again,  one  does  not  see  how  the  sacrament  of  marriage,  after 
being  once  performed,  can  in  any  case  be  reduced  to  nothing. 
What  caused  alarm,  not  without  reason,  was  the  consequences ; 
it  was  the  reclamation  of  the  princes,  for  they  had  never  ceased 
to  protest  against  clandestine  marriages,  and  the  French  ambas- 
sadors, in  particular,  had  formally  demanded  that  they  should 
be  declared  null.  Priests  might  indeed  be  forbidden  to  celebrate 
such  marriages,  but  the  case  had  to  be  provided  for  of  priests 
paying  no  attention  to  this,  and  how,  after  that,  could  the  coun- 
cil dispense  with  determining  what  was  to  become  of  the  sacra- 
ment so  administered  ? 

After  fifteen  days  of  contention,  there  was  no  means  of  coming 
to  an  agreement,  or  of  appearing  to  be  agreed,  but  by  drawing 
up  a  decree  in  which  each  party  would  find  more  or  less  of  his 
views,  saving  that  the  practical  interpretation  was  to  be  left  to 
the  bishops  and  to  the  pope.  They  began,  therefore,  with  sim- 
plifying the  question  by  deciding  that  it  should  be  spoken  of  only 
in  the  disciplinary  articles,  where  they  hoped  they  might  avoid 
pronomicing,  in  precise  terms,  either  a  yes  or  a  no  on  the  validity 
of  clandestine  marriages.  After  getting  rid  of  this  first  difhculty, 
the  following  shift  was  adopted  : — "  Although  it  be  certain  that 
secret  marriages  have  been  true  and  valid  marriages,  in  so  far  as 
the  Church  has  not  annulled  them — although  the  council  an- 
athematizes those  who  do  not  hold  them  to  be  such,  together  with 
those  also  who  maintain  that  fathers  and  mothers  may  annul 
marriages  that  have  taken  place  without  their  consent,  the 
Church,  nevertheless,  has  always  forbidden  and  detested  them." 
Then  come  diverse  regulations  prescribing  the  j)ublic  formalities 
to  be  observed  before  the  celebration  of  a  marriage,  but  not  a 
word  is  said  about  the  intervention  of  the  civil  power. 

Here  but  one  point  is  very  clear  :  it  is  that  fathers  and  mothers 
must  not  believe  that  they  have  power  to  annul,  by  simply  re- 
fusing their  consent,  a  marriage  celebrated  in  secret,  and  without 


Chap.  III.  1503.     FORTY  ARTICLES   SENT  TO  THE  AMBASSADORS.    4<3 

their  participalioii.  The  aiiiiiilhiig  could  come  only  from  the 
Church,  AYas  the  Church,  thou,  to  annul  all  marriages  that 
lathers  and  mothers  might  refuse  to  ratify  ?  "VYere  it  to  engage 
to  do  this,  it  would  leave  one  door  for  the  admission  of  an  idea 
which  it  had  expelled  by  another  ;  fathers  and  mothers  could 
not  but  believe,  in  fact,  that  it  is  they  who  annul,  or,  at  least, 
who  have  the  right  to  exact  the  annulling.  Hence  this  studied 
obscurity.  Are  such  marriages  valid  ?  Yes,  as  lo7ig  as  the 
CJiurcJi,  has  not  aiimdlcd  iJicm.  Then  the  Church  can  aninil 
them?  No  doubt.  Does  it  annul  them  thenceforward?  No 
answer.  The  council  only  makes  a  step  that  prevents  its  ad- 
vancing farther. 

One  point  more,  consequently,  on  which  the  council  durst  not 
express  its  thoughts,  and  recoiled  before  the  rigorous  application 
of  its  principles.  This  ambiguity  displeased  many  of  the  bishops. 
Fifty-six  M'cre  for  franldy  keeping  to  the  theological  legality  of 
marriage,  without  disquieting  themselves  about  the  civil  legality. 
This  opinion  being  at  once  more  logical  and  more  favourable  to 
the  sacerdotal  authority,  had  great  charms  for  the  Roman  party  ; 
the  legates  had  much  to  do  to  prevent  its  passing  openly  into  the 
decree,  a  result  that  would  have  produced  the  most  dangerous 
protests.  Such  was  the  way  in  which  a  place  was  tacitly  contrived 
lor  the  civil  legislation  ;  but  that  place  the  articles,  viewed  as  a 
whole,  tended  to  make  as  small  and  as  inconvenient  as  possible. 
"\Ye  shall  notice,  farther  on,  those  which  contributed  to  prevent 
the  reception  of  the  council  in  France  and  elsewhere.  Other 
facts  which  Ave  cannot  leave  behind  now  require  our  attention. 

Immediately  after  the  session  of  loth  July,  the  legates  had 
sent  to  the  ambassadors  forty  disciplinary  articles,  with  a  request 
to  have  their  opinion  upon  them  before  submitting  them  to  dis- 
cussion. These  articles,  although  put  together  in  such  a  way  as 
to  do  no  prejudice  to  the  pope,  and  even,  as  we  shall  see,  to 
favour  his  authority,  were  generally  good  ;  had  the  close  of  the 
council  not  been  so  near,  they  might  have  been  accepted  with 
joy,  as  an  approximation  to  reforms  of  a  more  important  kind, 
and  really  such  as  Europe  desired  them  to  be.  But  the  Roman 
party  talked  of  bringhig  matters  to  an  end  in  one  session,  or  at 
most  in  two  ;  those  articles,  accordingly,  risked  being  the  last, 
and  there  was  but  a  small  number  that  answered  directly  to  the 
desires  of  the  secular  princes  and  their  subjects. 

This  was  remarked  by  all  the  ambassadors.  On  the  3 1st  of 
July,  those  of  the  emperor  presented  a  memorial,  in  M'hich  they 
shewed  how  far  people  still  were  from  that  reformation  in  the 
head  and  the  members,  so  often  solicited,  so  often  promised  for 
a  century.     They  called  attention  to  a  dozen  of  points  hitherto 


414:  HISTORY    OF   THE    COUNCIL    OF  TRENT.  Book.  VI. 

omitted  or  rejected,  and  without  which,  they  held  all  that  had 
been  done,  or  might  yet  be  done,  would  end  in  nothing.  They 
placed  in  the  first  line  a  severe  revision  of  the  laws  and  customs 
relative  to  cardinals  and  conclaves.  The  French  ambassadors, 
whose  answer  did  not  appear  till  three  days  after,  insisted  no  less 
strongly  on  this  last  article.  They  required,  among  other  things, 
that  the  number  of  cardinals  should  be  restricted  to  twenty-four ; 
that  the  pope  should  not  elevate  to  this  dignity  either  his  own 
brothers  or  nephews,  or  the  nephews  or  brothers  of  a  living  car- 
dinal ;  that  they  should  all  have  an  equal  and  fixed  revenue  ;  in 
fine,  that  there  should  never  be  at  one  time  more  than  eight  of 
the  same  nation.  At  all  times,  in  fact,  there  have  been  mur- 
murs against  the  exorbitant  privilege  accorded,  on  this  last  point, 
to  Italy.  "Why  should  so  many  of  the  cardinals  be  Italians  ? 
Q,uite  recently,  on  the  death  of  Gregoiy  XVI.,  there  were  fifty, 
while  all  the  rest  of  the  Homari  Catholic  world  reckoned  only  ten, 
not  one  of  whom  took  part  in  the  election  of  the  present  pope. 
Besides,  why  always  have  an  Italian  for  pope  ?  There  is  little 
consistency,  surely,  between  the  universality  which  the  Roman 
Church  arrogates  to  herself  and  this  absolute  preponderance  in- 
definitely accorded  to  one  nation. 

The  Spanish  ambassador,  who  replied  only  on  the  7tli  of 
August,  began  by  declaring  himself  content  wdth  the  forty  arti- 
cles, but  afterwards  insisted  still  more  strongly  than  the  rest  on 
the  insufficiency  and  the  nullity  of  a  reform  that  should  stop  at 
that  point.  He  required,  also,  that  among  the  prelates  of  each 
nation  a  committee  should  be  named  for  proposing  the  reforms 
which  they  severally  might  want.  He  declared,  in  fine,  as  had 
been  done  already  by  the  French  and  German  ambassadors,  that 
his  present  remarks  were  not  to  be  considered  as  his  last  words 
on  the  subject,  but  that  before  pronouncmg  definitively,  he  waited 
for  instructions  from  his  court. 

Several  things,  in  fact,  were  contemplated  in  which  the  secular 
princes  behoved  to  look  well  to  their  interests  before  committing 
themselves.  If  the  bishops  laboured  to  re-conquer  from  the  popes 
those  ancient  rights  out  of  which  they  had  been  cozened,  the 
princes,  on  their  hand,  had  need  to  see  to  it  that  these  conquests 
did  not  turn  to  the  detriment  of  the  royal  authority.  Those  pre- 
tensions which  they  might  lend  their  aid  to  destroy  in  the  heart 
of  Italy,  they  could  never  wish  to  find  starting  up  in  the  heart 
of  their  own  states.  Accordingly,  the  ambassadors  of  Charles 
IX.  had  added  to  their  demands  in  behalf  of  the  bishops,  that 
they  should  be  interdicted  from  meddling  in  any  way  with  secu- 
lar affairs.  The  rest,  without  going  openly  so  far,  had  also  said 
enough  to  let  it  be  seen  that  neither  Ferdinand  nor  Philip  would 


Chap.  111.  15C3.    THE  POPE  ANXIOUS  TO  CLOSE  THE   COUNCIL.        'iT'j 

forget  to  take  their  own  precautions.  It  does  not  appear  that 
there  resulled  Ironi  this  any  perceptible  coohiess  between  the 
ambassadors  and  their  prelates  ;  but  one  may  be  allowed  to  think 
that  lor  the  latter  it  was  a  new  motive  to  be  more  accommodat- 
ing to  the  pope,  and  not  to  protest  too  strongly  against  the  ap- 
proaching close  of  the  council. 

Pius  IV.  eagerly  pressed  towards  that  object.  Repeatedly, 
during  these  late  times,  when  danger  seemed  to  him  to  be  aug- 
menting, the  suspension  or  dissolution  of  the  assembly  had  been 
in  question  between  his  legates  and  himself  After  the  auspi- 
cious termination  of  the  debates  upon  orders,  the  legates  had 
almost  advised  this  course  ;  seeing,  thought  they,  people  could 
not  flatter  themselves  with  the  prospect  of  not  being  driven  to 
it,  they  ought  not  to  wait  until  a  new  crisis  should  come,  when 
they  might  have  no  resource  but  an  ignominious  retreat.  The 
pope  had  thought  otherwise.  He  had  ordered  them  not  to  dream 
of  any  suspension,  unless  the  necessity  was  present  and  absolute  ; 
but  he  had  at  the  same  time  sent  them  word  to  have  done  with 
the  council  as  speedily  as  possible  and  at  any  cost.  In  conse- 
quence of  this,  they  first  of  all  retrenched  from  their  forty  arti- 
cles six  of  those  wdiicli,  after  hearing  the  remarks  of  the  ambas- 
sadors, they  thought  might  lead  to  long  debates  or  contested 
decisions.  The  remainder  were  submitted  to  deliberation  only 
on  the  21st  of  August,  and  all  that  raised,  or  seemed  likely  to 
raise  difficulties,  the  legates  hastened  to  retrench.  Thus  the 
forty  articles  were  reduced  to  twenty-one. 

While  these  things  were  doing,  (27th  August,)  the  imperial 
ambassadors  received  from  their  master  a  memoir  on  those  very 
articles.  He  warmly  complained  that  they  comprised  nothing 
good,  nothing  in  accordance  with  the  wishes  of  the  princes  that 
was  not  accompanied  with  clauses  contrary  to  their  rights.  It 
would  appear,  said  he,  that  the  design  has  been  to  make  this 
reformation  insupportable  to  them,  so  that  they  could  not  but 
reject  it,  and  that  the  disgrace  of  its  failure  might  fall  on  them, 
while  the  court  of  Rome  would  persevere  in  its  disorders  with- 
out disturbance. 

The  French  ambassadors  received  (11th  September)  letters 
from  their  king.  Knowing  as  little  as  the  emperor,  that  the 
greater  part  of  what  might  displease  the  princes  had  already 
been  retrenched,  he  enjoined  his  ministers  to  declare  that  he 
would  never  subscribe  to  it.^      But  what  he  ordered  them  spc 

^  "I  am  very  far  from  (obtaining)  what  I  expected  from  the  council, 
if  the  Fathers  proceed  to  the  judging  of  these  articles,  wliich  -will  make 
the  claws  of  kings  be  pared,  while  theh  own  are  allowed  to  grow,  a 
thing  I  sliall  not  endure." 


476  HISTORY   OF   THE    COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  VI. 

cially  to  oppose,  -svas  the  draft  always  announced  and  always 
kept  in  reserve  since  the  time  of  Paul  IV.,  of  a  special  decree  of 
reformation  applicable  to  the  princes.^  He  protested  beforehand 
against  all  invasion  of  the  rights  of  the  civil  authority,  enjoining 
his  ambassadors,  his  prelates,  and,  in  particular,  the  Cardinal 
of  Lorraine,  to  leave  Trent  the  very  day  that  that  decree  should 
be  proposed  by  the  legates. 

The  legates  seemed  to  have  no  wish  to  do  so ;  but  there  had 
arisen  among  the  Italians  a  powerful  and  bold  party,  with  which 
all  were  forced  to  reckon.  More  pojoish  than  either  the  pope  or 
his  ministers,  this  party  had  resolved  to  oppose  all  internal  re- 
form as  long  as  the  decree  on  the  princes  remained  undrawn  up 
and  unvoted.  Neither  the  entreaties  of  the  legates,  nor  those 
of  the  pope,  nothing,  in  short,  could  keep  them  quiet.  They 
would  not  be  quiet,  they  said,  unless  they  were  openly  com- 
manded to  be  so  ;  and  how  think  of  putting  such  an  affront 
on  most  devoted  servants?  They  were  about  a  hundred  in 
number. 

On  this  side,  then,  as  well  as  others,  the  pope  saw  no  way  of 
safety  but  through  the  intervention  of  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine. 
But  although  this  prelate  had  for  two  months  gone  with  the 
Roman  party,  he  was  still  far  from  being  its  master.  He  had 
no  choice,  therefore,  but  to  burn  his  vessels  ;  at  that  cost  he  was 
sure  of  being  listened  to.  The  pope  invited  him  to  come  to 
E-ome  ;  this  was  a  decisive  step.  He  first  hesitated,  then  pro- 
mised. The  session  having  been  notified  for  the  15th  of  ISep- 
tember,  the  legates  thought  for  a  moment  of  holding  it  v^hh.  the 
articles  on  marriage,  being  the  only  ones  ready,  or  in  the  way 
to  be  ready  ;  but  the  ambassadors  opposed  this,  dreading,  not 
without  reason,  that  the  reform  decrees,  if  omitted  once,  would 
be  so  a  second  time,  and  perhaps  altogether.  Not  wishing, 
therefore,  to  delay  the  cardinal's  departure,  the  legates  asked  for 
an  adjournment  until  his  return,  or  until  the  11th  of  November. 
To  this  the  majority  consented,  and  the  cardinal  set  out  on  his 
journey. 

He  was  received  at  Home  as  few  princes  had  ever  been. 
The  pope  lodged  him  in  his  own  palace,  and,  a  thing  quite  un- 
exampled, paid  him  a  public  visit.  Are  we  to  believe,  as  it 
was  reported,  that  Pius  IV.  promised  to  point  him  out  as  his 
successor,  and  to  neglect  nothing  that  could  secure  his  election  ? 

^  "Seeing  that  each  falls  npon  iis.  Ilis  Holiness  is  of  opinion  that 
for  the  love  of  God  you  should  allow  or  cause  the  council  still  to  con- 
tinue liarping  on  the  reformation  of  the  princes.  You  will  also  act  in 
such  a  manner  tliat  we  shall  not  seem  to  liave  any  liand  in  it." — Let- 
ter from  Cardinal  Borromco  to  the  Legates,  June  1563. 


Chap.  111.  1503.     DRAFT    OF   DECREE   ON    THE    PRINCES.  411 

Be  that  as  it  may,  \vc  shall  sec  there  was  reason  to  believe  that 
they  were  quite  of  one  niiiul. 

A  few  days  after  his  leaving  Trent,  the  legates  had  to  yield 
to  the  ultraniontanists,  and  to  propose  the  decree  on  the  princes. 
In  substance  it  was  as  follows  : — 

It  began  by  establishing  the  principle  that  a  clergyman  can- 
not be  tried  on  any  occasion  or  in  any  cause  whatever,  even 
criminal,  by  laymen,  without  the  previous  consent  of  his  bishop. 

The  incompetence  of  lay  courts  was  next  extended  to  every 
kind  of  causes,  not  spiritual  only,  but  touching  more  or  less 
closely  upon  spiritual  things,  upon  clergymen,  upon  the  Church's 
property  and  privileges. 

Consequently,  to  every  layman  who  shall  have  constituted 
himself,  or  allowed  himself  to  be  constituted  judge  of  a  clergy- 
man, or  in  an  ecclesiastical  clause — excommunication. 

To  every  clergyman  who  shall  have  accepted  from  the  civil 
power  a  commission  to  try  a  clergyman — suspension  as  a  priest, 
deprivation  of  his  benefices,  incapacity  for  possessing  other  ben- 
efices. 

Should  a  prince  have  made  an  edict  or  ordinance  concerning 
the  clergy,  the  affairs,  or  the  possessions  of  the  Church,  the 
edict  shall  be  null,  and  the  prince  excommunicated. 

He  also  shall  be  excommunicated  who  shall  attempt  to  inter- 
pose the  smallest  obstacle  to  the  publication  and  circulation  of 
ecclesiastical  sentences,  especially  those  that  emanate  from  the 
pope. 

He  also  shall  be  excommunicated  who  shall  make  bold  to 
levy  at  his  own  instance,  any  kind  of  impost  or  subsidy  on  the 
goods  of  ecclesiastics,  even  on  those  that  belong  to  them  not  as 
Church  property,  but  patrimonially  or  by  purchase. 

Thus  it  was  not  only  religious  independence,  but  the  right  of 
being  a  state  within  a  state  which  was  sought  to  be  secured. 
Was  there  any  hope  of  success  ?  Should  a  vote  have  come  to 
be  taken  could  there  be  any  hope  entertained  that  it  would  be 
accepted  by  the  princes  ?  In  order  to  this  one  must  have  be- 
lieved himself  to  be  in  the  twelfth  century,  for  such  pretensions 
were  hardly  more  admissible  in  the  sixteenth  century  than  they 
would  appear  to  be  in  our  own  days.  This  very  principle,  that 
a  clergyman  can  be  tried  only  by  clergymen,  has  been  made  a 
sort  of  axiom  by  the  Church ;  and  it  was,  in  fact,  as  an  axiom 
that  it  had  been  a  long  time  admitted  without  a  proof  being 
asked  or  sought  for.  But  when  people  began  to  take  it  into 
their  heads,  in  this  as  in  other  matters,  to  desire  to  have  reasons, 
what  was  there  found  that  could  serve  as  a  basis  to  this  doc- 
trine ?     First  of  all,  under  the  Old  Testament,  wc  find  nothing 


478  HISTORY    OF   THE   COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  VI. 

of  the  sort.  The  Hebrew  priests  were  amenable  to  the  tribu- 
nals of  the  country.  Beyond  their  rehgious  functions  they  fully 
owned  the  authority  of  the  kings,  and  we  do  not  find  that  the 
prophets,  those  inflexible  guardians  of  the  rights  of  religion,  ever 
made  any  reclamations  on  this  head.  After  the  prophets  came 
the  apostles.  They,  lilve  their  master,  preached  submission  to 
the  civil  authorities.  St.  Paul  submitted,  without  a  murmur, 
to  being  tried  by  a  Nero.  He  could  do  no  otherwise,  it  has  been 
said.  What  could  Nero  have  understood  about  a  reclamation 
based  on  ecclesiastical  law  ?  Nothing,  in  fact ;  but  St.  Paul 
wrote  about  the  same  time  to  people  capable  of  understanding 
it,  and  prepared,  moreover,  to  receive  as  emanating  from  God 
whatever  he  might  have  said  to  them  on  the  subject.  Does  he 
make  any  reservation  ?  Does  he  not,  at  least,  lay  in  some  few 
words  the  foundations  of  what  was  afterwards  to  be  the  law? 
Not  at  all.  After  him,  under  the  pagan  emperors,  whole  cen- 
turies elapse  without  the  clergy  having  the  idea  of  withdrawing 
themselves,  in  temporal  matters,  from  under  the  jurisdiction  of 
the  civil  judges.  That  that  independence  which  was  afterwards 
acquired  in  the  course  of  the  decomposition  of  the  empire  had 
some  good  results  is  incontestable,  but,  as  we  have  already  said 
in  speaking  of  another  question,  human  possession  cannot  estab- 
lish a  divine  right. 

The  protest  by  the  French  was  not  long  of  appearing.  Du 
Ferrier  was  entrusted  with  it.  It  is  a  piece  of  cutting  sarcasm, 
which  we  would  willingly  produce  from  beginning  to  end,  not 
that  we  approve  of  it  without  reserve,  for  it  is  here  and  there 
very  unbecoming  and  very  unjust,  but  as  a  specimen  of  what  a 
man  of  talent,  an  ambassador  of  the  king  of  France,  might  still 
think  and  say  of  the  council,  in  full  council,  and  in  the  face  of 
the  pope  and  of  Europe.  "  The  Jews,"  said  he,  "  were  very 
well  ofi^  indeed  in  having  had  only  twenty-seven  years  to  weep 
while  waiting  for  their  dehverance  I  As  for  us,  we  have  been 
waiting  a  hundred  and  forty  years  for  ours,  and  now,  instead  of 
getting  it,  people  talk  of  tightening  the  yoke.  Where  do  we 
see,  in  the  earlier  times  of  the  Church,  this  independence  of  the 
clergy  ?  Did  Constantine,  Thcodosius,  Justinian,  and  so  many 
other  princes,  never  make  laws  then  for  any  but  laymen  ?  Have 
Ave  not,  on  the  contrary,  a  host  of  decrees  past  by  them  of  the 
same  sort  as  those  that  people  noAV  pretend  to  anathematize  ? 
Have  you  done  so  much,  then,  for  the  reformation  of  the  Church, 
that  you  are  authorized,  and  have  time,  to  set  about  reforming 
the  civil  powers  ?  Let  us  see  ;  what  progress  have  you  made  ?" 
And  forthwith  this  bold  ambassador  began  to  run  over  all  the 
decrees  already  made,  shewing,  as  it  was  not  difficult  to  do,  that 


CiiAi'.  111.  ljr.3.         I'HOTESTS  OF    THE   AMBASisADORS.  419 

not  Oil  a  siiif^lc  question  had  they  jrone  to  the  roots  ol'  the  evil. 
Then  passin<2^  nncler  review  the  last  decrees  that  had  been  pro- 
posed, "  Is  this,  "  said  he,  "  is  this  the  healing  balm  of  which 
Isaiah  speaks,  and  which  is  to  close  the  wounds  of  Christendom  ? 
Is  it  not  rather  the  dressing  of  Ezckiel  w^hich  makes  the  Mound 
to  be  seen  and  opens  it  when  closed?"  Thus  spoke  Du  Ferrier, 
and  his  animated  diction,  set  oiY  with  quotations,  was  at  once 
biting  and  violent.^ 

The  form  spoilt  the  substance.  The  French  prelates  were 
obliged  to  disavow  a  discourse  which  w^as  nothing  but  a  long 
sarcasm.  The  Cardinal  of  Lorraine,  then  at  Rome,  apologized 
for  it  to  the  pope. 

Nevertheless,  sarcasm  apart,  there  always  remained  a  fact — 
the  king's  protest.  To  it,  although  wdth  more  reservations,  the 
emperor  added  his.  The  Spanish  ambassador,  in  presenting  that 
from  his  master,  had  seized  the  opportunity  of  asking  once  more 
that  the  clause  2^ro])07ie?iiibtis,  with  which  he  said  the  decrees 
would  never  have  the  consideration  due  to  those  ol"  a  council 
assembled  freely  and  in  accordance  with  the  ancient  canons, 
should  be  expunged  or  explained.  Other  states,  and  Venice  in 
particular,  also  solicited,  some  of  them  by  simple  prayers,  others 
by  protests,  according  as  they  ventured  to  express  their  thoughts 
more  or  less  openly,  the  softening  down  or  the  omission  of  the 
decree  on  the  princes.  As  for  the  Church's  enemies,  they  might 
well  desire  that  the  decree  should  pass ;  nothing  could  be  better 
fitted  to  snap  asunder  the  last  ties  that  bound  together  the  sov- 
ereigns of  Christendom  and  Rome. 

The  ultra-Romanists  persisted.  The  discussion  W'as  about  to 
open.  It  then  came  to  be  known  that  the  ambassadors  were 
concerting  a  common  protest,  and  the  prelates  felt  that  they 
were  not  in  a  condition  to  face  such  a  manifestation.  The  coun- 
cil consented,  therefore,  to  confine  itself,  for  the  next  session,  to 
the  decrees  on  marriage,  together  with  such  of  the  disciplinar}' 
decrees  as  the  members  were  almost  quite  agreed  upon.  Mean- 
while there  would  be  prepared  the  materials  for  purgatory,  in- 
dulgences, the  worship  of  saints  and  of  images,  in  a  word,  all 
that  remained  for  examination  before  the  circle  of  doctrinal  in- 
struction could  be  complete. 

Commissions  were  actually  named  for  elaborating  these  vari- 
ous subjects ;  but  the  assembly  had  ver}'  little  time  to  devote  to 
them.  The  month  of  October  and  the  early  days  of  November 
were  spent  in  discussions,  either  on  the  points  already  ripe  lor 
voting,  although  not  yet  voted,  or  upon  the  propoiientiliis . 
The  pope  was  daily  called  to  intervene,  either  openly,  when  ob- 

'  Pallavicini,  Book  xxiii.  ch.  i. 


480  HISTORY   OF   THE    COUNCIL   OF    TRENT.  Book  VI. 

stacles  occurred  wliich  he  only  could  remove,  or  secretly,  when 
the  legates  asked  from  him  counsels  or  orders.  Of  these  they 
had  more  need  than  ever.  One  cannot  imagine  the  state  of 
confusion,  of  chaos,  the  assembly  then  presented.  As  the  mem- 
bers had  become  a  little  drilled  into  parliamentary  usages  the 
sittings  were  less  tumultuous  than  formerly  ;  but  this  calm  and 
this  order  served  only  to  facilitate  the  bringing  out  of  all  the 
diversities  of  opinion  that  prevailed.  The  legates  seldom  suc- 
ceeded in  concentrating  the  discussion  on  one  point.  Discipline, 
dogma,  clandestine  marriages,  the  lyroiJonentihiis,  disputes  about 
precedence,  bishops'  grievances,  princes'  grievances,  each  and 
all  were  perpetually  returning,  on  all  occasions,  in  everything, 
everywhere.  With  the  discussions  which  we  have  related,  or 
to  which  we  have  alluded,  there  were  mingled  many  more  of 
which  we  have  said  nothing.^  One's  head  becomes  dizzy,  says 
Pallavicini,  in  perusing  the  inextricable  history  of  those  last 
times  of  the  council.  Nowhere  can  you  perceive  a  guiding 
thread,  or  fixed  marks,  or  probable  end ;  it  would  be  impossible 
for  you  to  say  if  the  council  is  to  extricate  itself  in  a  year  or  in 
a  month,  within  a  few  days  or  never. 

Unlikel^"  as  it  was  that  the  council  would  close  soon,  judging 
only  by  the  state  of  the  debates  and  the  multiplicity  of  business 
before  it,  that  event  was,  in  reality,  highly  probable,  if  we  look 
to  the  resolution  that  had  been  taken,  as  we  have  seen,  to  aban- 
don whatever  should  be  too  long,  or,  still  more,  if  we  look  to  the 
extreme  lassitude  of  parties  in  general  and  of  all  the  prelates  in 
particular.  The  way  was  further  prepared  for  it  by  consenting, 
by  the  advice  of  the  pope,  to  an  explanation  of  the  -proponentihus 
in  a  liberal  sense.  Of  what  now  was  there  any  risk  ?  Every- 
body was  so  eager  to  come  to  ajp.  end  and  to  go  away  that  there 
was  little  fear  of  any  party  making  serious  use  of  that  right  of 
proposing  which  had  been  hitherto  confiscated  to  the  advantage 
of  the  pope's  representatives.  There  was  added,  therefore,  to 
the  decrees,  a  declaration,  bearing  that  there  had  been  no  inten- 
tion of  making  any  change,  by  this  word,  in  the  ordinary  prac- 
tice of  councils-general ;  but  as  several  doctors  had  rigidly  main- 
tained that  in  these  councils  the  right  of  proposing  did  not  belong 
to  the  legates,  that  declaration  was  too  vague  for  the  Spaniards 
to  be  satisfied  with  it.  They  accordingly  rejected  it,  but  with- 
out being  able  to  obtain  any  clearer  expression  of  opinion  on 
the  subject ;  and,  in  fine,  on  the  solicitations  of  the  Cardinal  of 
Lorraine,  who  arrived  from  Rome,  they  decided  on  accepting  it. 

^  Contention  between  the  emperoi*  and  the  pope  about  the  election 
of  his  son  as  king  of  the  Romans:  affair  of  the  patriarch  of  A^enice, 
Erimani,  who  was  accused  of  heresy,  etc. 


Ohvp.  III.  J563.  SUCCESS,    ALWAYS    SUCCESS.  481 

Nothinp:  farther  being  opposed  to  the  holding  of  the  session 
fixed  for  tJie  lltli  of  November,  a  general  congregation  met  on 
the  10th  for  tlie  definitive  settlement  of  the  decrees.  That  last 
sitting  threatened  the  loss  of  all.  Those  members  Avho  were 
most  disposed  to  yield  seemed  to  hold  themselves  bound  once 
more  to  express  their  whole  opinion.  All  seemed  ready  to  begin 
anew  ;  and  if  the  legates  had  not  been  aware  how  eager  they  all 
were  to  agree  and  to  have  done  with  it,  never  would  they  have 
hazarded  holding  the  session  on  the  following  day. 

That  session  (the  twenty-fourth,  November  11,  1563),  for  tlie 
rest,  was  about  to  present  almost  the  same  spectacle.      "  "VYliilc 
in  the  others,"  says   Pallavicini,    "  one  was   astonished   if,   by 
chance,  some  prelates,  very  few  in  number,  did  not  give  their 
pure  and  simple  adhesion  to  all  the  propositions  agreed  on  in 
congregation-general ;  in  this,  on  the  contrary,  there  were  very 
few  ivlio  had  not  something  to  reinchend''     "  The  most  nota- 
ble acquiesced,"  adds  the  historian,  even  although  he  reports 
long  observations  made  by  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  and  Cardi- 
nal Madrucci.     In  short,  the  decrees  could  not  be  fixed  in  the 
course  of  the  sitting.     The  president  stated  that  modifications 
would  be  made  as  much  in  conformity  as  possible  with  the  wish 
of  the  greater  number  ;  these  changes  were  to  be  equally  valid 
as  if  they  had  been  voted  in  public  session.     The  hour  was  far 
advanced  ;  they  had  been  sitting  ever  since  morning  ;  the  close 
was  voted  unanimously.     Upon  this  a  new  burst  of  triumph 
from  Pallavicini.     "  On  seeing  this  success  the  council  thought 
it  could  perceive  the  port  towards  which  it  felt  itself  borne  on- 
wards by  a  propitious  gale,  but  not  without  the  dread  of  some 
furious  hurricane  yet  coming  on  and  driving  it  again  to  a  dis- 
tance."    As  for  the  pope,  "  One  cannot  express  the  delight  with 
.which  he  was  transported  on  hearing  this  happy  news.     He 
sent  to  say  that  it  had  overwhelmed  both  him  and  his  court 
with  infinite  joy,  and  remarked  that  he  viewed  tJds  success  as 
the   earnest   of  an   approaching  conclusion."     Success,  always 
success,  as  if  four  months  of  convulsions  and  of  chaos  Avcre  not, 
on  the  contrary,  the  very  rudest  defeat  to  which  the  makers  of 
infallible  laws  could  be  subjected. 

Let  us  now  cast  a  glance  over  the  general  mass  of  those  that 
had  been  promulgated. 

The  doctrinal  decree  which  we  have  examined  elsewhere,  is 
accompanied  with  twelve  canons,  with  anathema  to  whosoever 
shall  teach — 

That  marriage  is  not  one  of  the  seven  sacraments  instituted  by 
Jesus  Christ ;  that  no  divine  law  forbids  polygamy  ;  that  the 

X 


482  HISTORY   OF   THE   COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  VI. 

Church  has  not  the  right  to  diminish  or  to  extend  the  number 
of  matrimonial  impediments  estabhshed  by  the  law  of  Moses  ; 
that  the  Church  has  erred  in  those  she  has  established ;  that 
marriage  may  be  dissolved  on  account  of  heresy,  the  defects  or 
the  voluntary  absence  of  one  of  the  spouses  ;  that  marriage  cele- 
brated, but  not  consummated,  is  not  dissolved  by  one  of  the 
spouses  entering  a  religions  order  ;  that  the  Church  has  erred  in 
teaching  that  the  tie  is  not  dissolved  by  adultei-y  ;  that  she  has 
erred  in  authorizing,  in  certam  cases,  the  separation  of  the 
spouses  without  dissolving  the  marriage  ;  that  clergymen  and 
the  religious  (monks  and  nuns)  may  marry  if  they  do  not  find 
themselves  capable  of  persevering  with  honour  in  celibacy ;  that 
the  state  of  marriage  is  preferable  to  virginity,  and  that  celibacy, 
on  the  contrary,  is  not  superior  to  marriage ;  that  the  prohibi- 
tion of  weddings  at  certain  seasons  is  a  tyrannical  superstition  ; 
that  matrimonial  causes  are  no  concern  of  the  ecclesiastical 
judges. 

All  these  points  might  furnish  matter  for  many  observations. 
Several  have  been  made  already.  Let  us  add  a  few  more  with- 
out dwelling  long  on  the  subject. 

St.  Paul,  who  has  said  so  much  about  marriage  and  so  much 
})ressed  its  holiness,  nowhere  says  that  it  was  instituted  by  Jesus 
Christ. 

Nothing  better  than  to  forbid  polygamy  as  contrary  to  the 
spirit  of  Christianity.  To  affirm  that  it  has  been  forbidden  by 
a  divine  law,  is  to  go  beyond  the  truth. 

A  law  proceeding  from  God,  the  law  of  Moses,  has  laid  down 
certain  impediments.  Jesus  Christ,  in  introducing  modifications 
on  other  points  relative  to  marriage,  has  said  nothing  of  that, 
neither  have  his  Apostles  done  so.  The  Church  cannot  therefore 
impose,  as  articles  of  faith,  the  modifications  she  has  made  in  it. 

The  divine  law  speaks  of  marriage,  but  does  not  speak  of 
monastic  vows.  On  what  shall  we  rest  the  recognition  of  such 
a  superiority  m  the  latter  of  these  engagements  that  the  other 
may  be  broken  by  it  ? 

What  foundation  is  there,  in  fine,  for  teaching  as  an  article  of 
faith,  and  sanctioning  with  an  anathema,  the  prohibition  of  wed- 
dino;s  at  certain  times  ?  After  such  a  canon,  there  is  no  reason 
for  all  the  Church's  laws  not  being  also  points  of  faith.  To 
place  the  latter  among  the  canons,  and  to  relegate  that  on  clan- 
destine marriages  among  the  disciplinary  articles,  mtimately  as- 
sociated though  it  be  with  doctrine,  is  a  subversion  of  order,  such 
as  we  shall  find  rarely  exemplified  even  in  the  most  ill-assorted 
civil  laws. 

Without  recurring  to  the  grand  question  of  the  indissolubility 


■N 


Chap.  III.  1JC3  DISCIPLINARY   REGULATIONS.  183 

of  marriage,  still  let  ii.s  notice  in  what  manner  tliia  dof^mia  is 
taught  here,  "  Anathema,"  it  is  said  in  the  seventh  canon,  "  to 
whosoever  shall  maintain  that  the  Church  errs  in  teaching  that 
marriage  cannot  be  dissolved  on  account  of  the  adultery  of  one 
of  the  spouses."  Why  this  roundabout  statement  ?  If  the 
Church  has  not  erred  in  teaching  that  adultery  does  not  autho- 
rize divorce,  wdiy  not  have  simply  announced  the  thing,  with 
anathema  to  whosoever  shall  deny  it  ?  This  is  what  was  done 
at  hrst ;  but  the  Venetian  ambassador  having  remonstrated  that 
his  republic  had  subjects  belonging  to  the  Greek  Church,  where 
this  opinion  is  not  held,  the  statement  was  purposely  softened 
down.  Hence  this  simple  declaration  that  the  Latin  Church  has 
not  erred  in  teaching  it.  This  was  more  prudent ;  but  then 
what  signifies  the  anathema  ?  How  anathematize  an  opinion, 
Avhile  you  at  the  same  time  avoid  declaring  it  to  be  false  ?  A 
principle  in  discipline  may  be  bad  in  the  West  and  good  in  the 
East ;  but  a  matter  of  faith  is  necessarily  everywhere  true  or 
everywhere  false.  Ever  the  same  confusion  between  discipline 
and  dogma,  between  the  fallible  and  the  infallible  ;  ever  the 
same  influence  of  the  things  of  the  earth  on  that  which  is  to  be 
taught  in  the  name  of  heaven.  If  the  council  abstained  from 
declaring  absolutely  the  indissolubility  of  marriage,  it  was  not 
because  Jesus  Christ  had  taught  the  contrary,  it  was  because 
the  Venetians  possessed  the  islands  of  Cyprus  and  Candia,  and 
it  did  not  suit  them,  for  the  moment,  to  disquiet  the  Greek  mer- 
chants that  resided  there. 

Let  us  pass  on  to  the  disciplinary  articles. 

We  have  spoken  of  the  first — that  of  clandestine  marriages  and 
public  formalities. 

The  three  next  bore  upon  the  impediments  to  marriage. 
Some  useful  alleviations  were  applied  to  the  boundless  despotism 
that  the  Church  had  arrogated  to  herself  in  those  matters. 

The  fifth  ordained  that  matrimonial  dispensations  should  be 
granted  rarely  and  gratuitously. — We  need  not  say  how  this  last 
clause  is  observed. 

The  sixth,  and  the  two  following,  treat  of  rape  and  concu- 
binage.— The  substance  was  good,  but  the  civil  authority  very 
ill  treated.  The  magistrates  were  reduced  to  the  humble  office 
of  mere  police  agents,  under  the  supreme  direction  of  the 
bishops. 

The  ninth  excommunicated  eveiy  prince  or  lord  who  should 
have  constrained  one  of  his  subjects  to  marry  against  his  will. 

The  tenth,  in  fine,  limited  to  Advent  and  to  Lent  the  seasons 
during  which  no  marriage  could  be  celebrated. 

The  first  of  the  articles,  said  to  be  of  reformation,  contains 


484  HISTORY    OF    THE    COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  VI. 

excellent  counsels  on  the  choosing  of  the  bishops,  parish  priests, 
and  all  the  other  functionaries  of  the  Church.  The  minority 
had  succeeded,  not  without  difficulty,  in  having  these  rules  de- 
clared applicable  to  the  election  of  the  cardinals ;  it  had  even 
been  added  that  the  pope  should  choose  them  as  much  as  possi- 
ble from  among  all  Roman  Catholic  nations.  "VYe  have  seen 
what  has  been  the  result. 

II.  The  provincial  councils  shall  meet  every  three  years. — 
This  has  never  been  observed.  The  popes  have  never  seen  to 
its  being  observed.  The  isolation  of  the  bishops  was  more  fa- 
vourable to  the  See  of  Rome  than  that  union  of  which  those 
colloquies  might  be  the  source.  The  diocesan  councils,  accord- 
ing to  the  same  article,  ought  to  meet  every  year  ;  a  rule  which 
has  been  no  better  observed,  the  bishops  having  the  same  reason 
as  the  popes  for  not  liking  to  have  deliberative  assemblies  under 
them. 

III.  Every  year,  or  at  least  every  two  years,  the  bishop  shall 
make  a  general  visitation  of  his  diocese.  The  rules  to  be  ob- 
served in  these  visitations. 

IV.  Additions  to  the  decree  of  1546  on  preaching. — The  coun- 
cil repeats  that  preaching  is  the  ininci'pal  duty  of  the  bishops. ^ 

V.  A  bishop  accused  of  a  serious  crime  shall  be  judged  by 
the  pope. — This  has  not  been  admitted  in  France.  The  Galil- 
ean practice,  founded  on  the  ancient  general  practice,  attributes 
to  provincial  councils  the  trial  of  bishops. 

YL  The  bishops  shall  have  power  to  absolve  in  secret  from 
all  censure  incurred  for  secret  crimes,  excepting  homicide, 

VII.  The  bishop  shall  see  to  it,  that  previous  to  the  admin- 
istration of  the  sacraments,  their  meaning  and  virtue  shall  be 
explained  to  the  people.  The  explanation  shall  be  in  co^nform- 
ity  with  a  catechism  drawn  up  by  the  council,  and  translated  into 
all  languages. — That  catechism  was  not  made  at  Trent,  and,  as 
matters  stood,  it  was  well  known  that  it  would  not  be  made 
there.  It  is  the  Koinan  Catechism,  or  the  Catcchiwi  of  Trent, 
that  which  we  have  repeatedly  quoted.  We  have  seen  that  the 
council  is  made  to  say  there  a  great  deal  that  it  had  not  said, 
and  sometimes  the  contrary  of  what  it  had  said, 

VIII.  Public  sinners  shall  be  subjected  to  public  penances, 
always  susceptible  of  being  converted  by  the  bishops  into  secret 
penances. — The  exception  has  continued  to  be  made  the  rule. 
There  are  no  obligatory  public  penances. 

IX.  The  bishop,  as  delegate  of  the  pope,  shall  inspect  the 
churches  in  his  neighbourhood  which  shall  not  be  found  to  be 
of  any  diocese. 

'  See  Book  11. 


Chap.  III.  15G3.  DISCIPLINARY    RECrLATIONS.  485 

X.  Ill  aflhiis  connected  -with  morals,  the  bishop's  sentence 
shall  take  oilcct  immediately,  even  in  the  case  of  an  appeal  to 
the  pope. 

XI.  New  applications  of  the  right  of  inspection  in  bishops, 
always  in  their  quality  of  delegates  of  the  Holy  See. 

XII.  That  none  shall  be  raised  to  any  dignity  to  which  the 
charge  of  souls  is  attached,  bell^re  the  age  of  five-and-twenty. 
That  archdeacons,  canons,  as  well  as  the  priests  of  important'? 
parishes,  shall,  as  far  as  possible,  be  doctors  or  licentiates  in 
theology. 

XIII.  Divers  measures  to  be  taken  for  providing  that  parish 
priests  shall  everywhere  have  a  fitting  salar}\ — 111  observed.  "VYe 
have  seen  that  the  inferior  clergy  continued  to  have  no  share  in 
the  wealth  of  the  Church. 

XIV.  The  council  reproves  and  interdicts  the  custom  of  pay- 
ing any  simi  whatever  for  the  acquisitions  of  titles  and  taking 
of  possession. — Although  this  article  struck  at  the  payment  of 
annats,^  the  popes  have  never  liked  it  to  be  understood  in  this 
sense. 

XY.  Divers  measures  concerning  canons  and  their  revenues. 

XVI.  Duties  of  chapters  during  vacancies  in  the  episcopal  see. 

XVII.  That  no  one  possess  more  than  one  benefice  requiring 
residence. — Often  violated  or  eluded,  as  we  have  seen,  until  pub- 
lic opinion,  more  powerful  than  the  decree,  made  things  better. 

XVIII.  Parish  livings  to  be  bestowed  according  to  compara- 
tive merit.  A  jury,  named  by  the  bishop,  shall  subject  the  can- 
didates to  a  public  examination. — Well  meant,  but  attended  with 
great  practical  inconveniences.  The  most  capable  of  shining  at 
an  examination  will  often  prove  the  least  capable  of  behig  a  good 
parish  priest.     The  rule  has  remained  on  the  paper. 

XIX.  Against  divers  abuses  in  the  collation  of  benefices. 

XX.  Ecclesiastical  procedure.  Forms,  guarantees,  appeals, 
&c.  The  pope  shall  not  have  it  in  his  power  to  evoke  a  cause 
to  himself,  unless  for  very  serious  reasons,  and  by  a  rescript 
signed  by  his  own  hand. 

XXI.  '\Ye  have  said  enough  of  this.  It  is  the  tardy  explana- 
tion of  the  2Jropo?ieniibus.  It  would  have  been  more  natural  to 
have  made  a  separate  decree  of  it,  or  at  least  to  have  placed  it 
at  the  head,  than  to  have  made  it  the  twenty-first  article  of  a 
decree  that  treats  of  something  quite  different. 

On  the  whole,  however,  we  cannot  but  think  that  people  were 
wrong  in  continuing  to  accuse  the  council  of  having  made  insig- 
nificant regulations  only.     But  one  thing  Avas  wanting  ;  a  sanc- 

^  Sum  that  has  to  be  paid  to  tlie  pope  upon  entering  on  a  benefice. 
It  was  ordinarilv  a  year's  revenue. 


486  HISTORY   OF  THE    COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  VI. 

tion  that  could  be  reckoned  on ;  and  this  is  probably  what  was 
especially  meant  when  they  were  said  to  be  feeble  and  null. 
Moreover,  as  there  was  nothing  in  these  reforms  that  might  not 
have  been  equally  well  decreed  by  the  pope,  they  were  thought 
to  be  beneath  the  dignity  of  a  council :  what  was  wanted  from 
it  was  principles,  not  details  ;  a  constitution,  in  fine,  not  simple 
laws.  We  have  seen  the  efforts  made  by  the  Court  of  Rome 
constantly  tending,  on  the  contrary,  to  confine  it  to  the  condition 
of  a  legislative  assembly,  deliberating  by  favour  of  the  prince. 
But  if  we  willingly  acknowledge  all  that  was  good  and  import- 
ant in  the  decisions  that  Rome  allowed  it  to  take — the  number 
and  the  gravity  of  the  points  which  it  regulated  sufficiently  shew, 
on  the  other  side,  whether  or  not  the  Church  of  Rome  had  been 
wronged  in  being  represented  as  inundated  with  abuses,  and  de- 
livered over  to  the  most  complete  arbitrary  power.  ^ 

And  so  the  twenty-fourth  and  next  to  the  last  session  was 
celebrated. 

^  After  the  admissions  of  Roman  Catliolic  historians  this  remark  seems 
superfluous  ;  but  we  must  not  be  in  too  much  haste  in  supposing  a  fact 
acquired  in  history.  In  the  present  struggle  between  Roman  Catholi- 
cism and  the  Reformation,  have  we  not  witnessed  the  reappearance  of 
ideas  and  assertions  which  one  might  have  believed  to  be  buried  three 
centuries  ago?  That  frightful  corruption,  against  which  there  had  for 
so  long  a  time  been  nothing  but  one  universal  cry,  has  been  denied. 
Those  immense  disorders,  so  energetically  denounced,  at  Trent,  by  all 
the  independent  and  pious  bishops  to  be  found  there,  have  been  made 
out  to  be  slight  abuses  in  detail,  wickedly  exaggerated  by  the  Protest- 
ants. In  presence  of  such  tactics  no  argument  is  superfluous.  With 
people  who  would  deny  the  existence  of  the  sun,  were  it  to  suit  their 
object  in  the  smallest  degree  to  do  so,  we  must  put  ourselves  in  a  con- 
dition to  prove  that  the  sun  exists. 


CHAPTEK    IV. 

PAPAL    ARROGANCE.       PURGATORY    AND    VIRGIN-WORSHIP. 

The  Queen  of  Navarre  is  summoned  to  Rome — Protest  of  tlio  Queen  of 
France — The  pope  seconds  the  views  of  PliiHp  II.  on  that  kini^dom 
— It  is  decided  that  the  close  of  the  council  shall  take  place  before 
the  close  of  the  year — The  discussions  hastened  by  the  bad  state  of 
the  pope's  health — Question  of  purgatory — Scriptui-al  discussion — 
Involuntary  admission  in  the  Protestant  sense — Could  purgatory  fj^il 
to  be  expressly  mentioned  iu  Scripture? — The  worship  of  the  Virgin 
— Mar}-  in  the  Gospels — In  the  Acts — In  the  Epistles — In  the  Apoca- 
lypse— Historical  review — ^The  A^irgin  in  the  writings  of  the  Fathers 
— Great  eulogies  but  no  trace  of  worship — Epiphunius,  Cyi'il,  Proclus. 

The  next  to  the  last,  we  say  ;  but  those  who  felt  most  eager 
to  come  to  an  end  durst  not  hope  that  that  end  was  so  near. 
Besides  the  abundance  of  matters  that  had  still  to  be  treated,  a 
thousand  difficulties  might  emerge  ;  and  there  was  enough  of 
these  already. 

Immediately  after  their  protest  against  the  decree  on  the 
princes,  the  ambassadors  of  Charles  IX.  had  retired  to  Venice. 
They  had  been  accused  of  having  exceeded  their  commission ; 
but  they  could  soon  shew  a  new  letter  in  which  the  king  gave 
them  his  full  and  entire  approval,  enjoining  them  not  to  return 
to  Trent  until  they  had  received  a  promise  that  the  obnoxious 
decree  should  be  abandoned. 

Although  the  pope  had  not  approved  of  its  being  presented, 
he  believed  liimself  possessed  of  a  still  wider  extent  of  rights 
than  had  been  mentioned  in  that  famous  piece.  On  the  22d  of 
October,  by  a  proclamation  solemnly  posted  at  the  gates  of  St. 
Peter's,  he  summoned  the  Q.ueen  of  Navarre  to  appear  before 
him  as  a  heretic  and  supporter  of  heretics,  under  penalty  of  be- 
ing declared  to  have  escheated  her  dignities,  estates,  domains ; 
having  her  marriage  declared  null,  her  children  bastards,  kc. 
The  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  had  vainly  tried  to  make  the  pope 
comprehend  that  this  summons,  particularly  in  the  terms  cm- 
ployed,  was  only  a  dangerous  anachronism.  He  detested  the 
queen  ;  but  felt  also  that  the  pope  was  about  to  compel  Charles 
IX.  to  undertake  her  defense,  and  that  this  was  not  quite  the 
way  to  put  licr  down.     Under  this  f  )rm,  in  fact,  her  cause  M'as 


488  HISTORY  OF  THE    COUNCIL    OF   TRENT.  Book  VI. 

that  of  all  crowned  heads  ;  heretic  or  not,  the  question  was 
whether  E-ome  meant  to  return  to  her  ancient  omnipotence  over 
states  and  sovereigns. 

This  question  was  stated  to  the  pope  with  a  vigour  which  he 
nowise  expected.  The  French  ambassador  at  Home,  D'Oisel, 
had  orders  to  say  to  him,  "  that  at  the  first  rumour  of  this 
strange  news  the  king  could  not  believe  it ;  that  after  the  read- 
ing of  the  proclamation,  he  still  hesitated  before  he  could  figure 
to  himself  such  a  forgetfulness  of  the  royal  majesty,  of  the  liber- 
ties of  the  kingdom,  of  the  universal  reprobation  now  bestowed 
on  this  kind  of  procedure.  And  although  the  right  of  the  pope 
had  been  as  much  acknowledged  as  it  was  little,  why  put  it 
forth  against  the  Queen  of  Navarre  rather  than  against  so  many 
other  princes  in  the  same  case  ?  Could  it  be  because  she  had 
no  means  of  defence,  and  that  hopes  were  entertained  of  tempt- 
ing the  king  by  offering  him  an  opportunity  of  usurping  the 
estates  of  his  kinswoman  ?  The  king  would  take  care  not  to 
sanction,  by  accepting  the  proffered  advantage,  a  right  which 
next  day  might  be  turned  against  himself  "When,  then,  would 
the  popes  come  at  last  to  see  that  if  Jesus  Christ  said,  My  king- 
dom is  not  of  this  tvorld,  it  cannot  pertain  to  his  vicar  either  to 
take  away  or  to  bestow  states  ?" 

Pius  IV.  was  in  no  condition  to  resist ;  he  promised  that  the 
matter  should  go  no  farther.  It  had  generally  been  thought 
monstrous,  even  in  Italy,  that  he  should  have  ventured  to  speak 
of  decla,ring  the  illegitimacy  of  the  children  of  a  prince  who  had 
died  in  fishing  for  the  Church.  Notwithstanding  this,  as  the 
summons  had  never  been  officially  withdrawn,  the  enemies  oi 
Henry  IV.  did  not  fail  to  make  use  of  it  as  an  arm  against  him. 
It  was  said,  that  "  as  his  mother  had  not  obeyed,  the  threat  was 
accomplished.  He  had  ceased  to  be  the  son  of  Anthony  of  Bour- 
bon ;  the  throne  of  France  did  not  belong  to  him."  Thus  were 
there  prepared  long  before,  and  always  at  Rome,  the  storms  that 
were  to  convulse  the  kingdom. 

The  future  agent  of  those  convulsions,  Philip  II.,  although  the 
council  often  gave  occasion  to  his  having  contentions  with  the 
pope,  was,  in  reality,  daily  becoming  more  and  more  united  with 
him.  This  was  because  the  council,  between  them,  was  no  more 
their  greatest  affair.  In  sending  directions  to  his  legates  to  have 
it  closed  as  soon  as  possible,  Pius  IV.  had  added  confidentially, 
that  they  need  not  pay  too  much  attention  to  the  reclamations 
of  the  Spaniards,  as  he  was  sure  of  their  king.  Here  we  see 
the  court  of  Rome  already  offering  to  the  bigoted  ambition  of 
Spain  the  bribe  of  having  France  to  control,  and  perhaps  to 
conquer. 


Chap.  IV.  15G3.     ALL   PARTIES   EAGER  FOR   RAl'ID   DESPATCH.         489 

It  formed  part  of  the  kiiifr's  policy,  accordingly,  that  his  union 
with  the  pope  should  remain  concealed  under  the  noisy  reclama- 
tions of  his   ambassadors  and  his  bishops.     The  latter  having 
asked  for  his  orders  with  respect  to  the  closing  of  the  council,  he 
had  given  them  only  vague  directions,  and  their  opposition  had 
already  somewhat  slackened.     It  revived  when  the  Cardinal  of 
Lorraine,  taking  the  lead  in  stating  what  was  the  wish  of  the 
majority,  proposed  to  finish  before   Christmas,  that  is  to  say, 
in  less  than  six  weeks.     "  He  and  his  French  colleagues,"  he 
said,  "  ought   to  be  on   their  way  hack  to  France  before  the 
end  of  December.     It  would  be  painful  for  him  to  leave  the 
council  while  still  sitting  ;  it  would  be  amioying  to  the  council 
to  close  without  any  French  bishops  being  present  at  the  signing 
of  the  decrees."     The  emperor's  ambassadors  also  began  to  say 
that  the  sooner  they  came  to  a  close  the  better.     Those  of  France 
were  still  at  Venice,  and  although  their  personal  feelings  went 
quite  the  other  way,  they  left  the  cardinal  to  act  as  he  pleased. 
Finally,  the  Spaniards  gave  way.     It  was  decided  that  the  next 
session  should  be  the  last ;  some  of  them  even  proposed,  in  order 
to  make  more  sure  of  this,  that  purgatory,  indulgences,  and  the 
worship  of  saints  should  be  omitted.      The  majority  felt  that 
such  an  omission  would  be  very  strange.     They  refused,  but  as 
we  have  seen  them  do  before,  they  promised  to  abandon  all  the 
points  on  which  the  members  should  not  be  immediately  agreed, 
or  on  which  disagreement  might  be  apprehended.     Yet  the  man 
who  should  have  ventured  to  say  that  the  close  would  take  place, 
not  at  Christmas,  but  at  three  weelts  before  Christmas,  would 
have  been  treated  as  a  dotard. 

The  pope's  ill  health  admirably  served  the  purposes  of  his 
ministers.  In  his  private  letters  he  often  spoke  ol"  it ;  urging 
them  to  spare  him  the  affliction  of  dying  before  the  close  of  the 
council,  with  the  prospect  of  the  election  of  his  successor  by  the 
assembly,  or  preceded  at  least  by  the  most  perilous  contentions 
between  it  and  the  cardinals.  The  Roman  party  did  not  need  his 
entreaties  in  order  to  make  them  enter  fully  into  his  fears,  and 
prevent  at  any  cost  their  being  realized.  The  French  and  the 
Spaniards  wanted  nothing  better,  for  the  moment,  than  to  escape 
the  agitation  of  so  serious  a  question.  The  emperor  and  his 
prelates,  though  quite  enough  disposed  to  regard  the  council,  in 
point  of  theory,  as  charged  with  the  election  of  the  head  of  the 
Church,  preferred  also,  for  the  moment,  not  having  to  explain 
their  views  upon  it.  All  were  agreed,  in  short,  that  it  should 
be  left,  in  the  event  contemplated,  to  the  college  of  cardinals ; 
but  as  no  party  felt  sufficiently  sure  of  the  others,  there  was 
hardly  a  bishop  to  whom  the  death  of  the  pope  would  not  have 


490  HISTORY   OF  THE   COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  VI. 

now  appeared  either  a  calamity,  or  a  subject  of  serious  perplexity, 
and  who  would  not  have  been  readv  to  sanction  all  that  could 
be  done  to  prevent  their  being  overtaken  by  it. 

Nine  prelates,  to  whom  care  was  taken  not  to  add  any  divine 
by  profession,  were  charged  with  the  dogmatical  questions.  The 
only  condition  imposed  on  them  was,  that  they  should  proceed 
with  despatch.  In  a  few  days  the  decree  was  ready  for  being 
voted. 

Although  we,  too,  are  anxious  to  conclude  our  labours,  we 
cannot  dispense  with  pointing  out  the  course  to  be  pursued  in 
the  discussion  of  the  subjects  that  were  now  to  be  treated. 

First  of  all,  let  us  be  careful  to  distinguish  between  theory  and 
practice.  Not  that  the  Church  of  Rome  does  not  here  appear 
to  us  quite  as  responsible  for  abuses  in  practice,  as  for  errors  in 
theory ;  but  it  is  prudent  that,  before  proceeding  farther,  we 
should  shut  the  outlet  which  we  see  daily  taken  advantage  of  in 
questions  of  this  nature.  The  grossest  superstitions  are  tolerated, 
encouraged,  provoked  ;  and  when  we  have  the  misfortune  to 
press  these  excesses,  we  are  denounced  as  wanting  in  good  faith. 
"  The  Council  of  Trent,"  is  the  instant  reply,  "  has  taught 
nothing  of  the  kind.  You  maintain  that  the  people  adore  the 
saints,  and  give  all  the  attributes  of  the  Deity  to  the  Virgin 
Mary.  Shew  us  a  single  article  in  which  this  adoration  is  or- 
dained ?  You  say  that  the  worship  of  images  and  of  relics  is  m 
many  places  a  veritable  idolatry.  But  the  council  teaches  ex- 
pressly that  they  are  to  be  honoured  only  with  a  reference  to 
those  whose  lives  and  persons  they  recall."  This  is  Bossuet's 
favourite  argumentation  in  all  his  pleadings  in  these  matters. 

Let  us,  for  the  nonce,  accept  this  distinction.  Should  we  be 
rigorously  bound  to  it  ?  No.  In  judging  of  a  m^an  who  would 
maintain  that  we  must  keep  to  his  writings  and  his  theories  ? 
"Writings  and  theories,  in  this  respect,  are  to  be  adduced  only  if 
the  man's  conduct  be  conformed  to  them.  From  the  moment 
they  are  found  opposed,  we  are  allowed  to  keep  to  facts.  On 
these  the  final  judgment  must  rest;  in  these  the  true  spirit  is  to 
be  found. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  let  us  confine  ourselves,  in  the  first  place, 
to  the  council's  declarations.  Let  us  see  what  it  teaches,  and 
how  much  of  that  Scripture,  history,  and  reason  permit  us  to 
accept. 

Purgatory,  in  itself,  at  a  first  glance,  has  nothing  that  shocks 
us.  "  Nothing  that  is  unclean  shall  enter  heaven,"  says  an  Apos- 
tle. For  souls  therefore  that  are  unclean,  the  Roman  Church 
concludes,  there  is  a  place  of  purification  and  expiation. 


liiAP.  IV.  lj(;;t.     NO  MENTION    or    I'l'RGATORY    IN    SCRII'TURL*.         491 

Take  care.  For  one  passage  from  which  you  may  try  to  iiilcr 
that  such  a  place  exists,  you  will  lind  twenty  where  the  purillca- 
tion  of  the  soul  is  represented  to  us  as  the  immediate  and  direct 
result  of  grace  manifested  in  Jesus  Christ  and  accepted  hy  laith. 

For  one  passage  from  which  you  might  helieve  you  were 
authorized  to  intercalate  the  idea  of  purgator}^  you  will  find 
twenty  in  which  the  passage  from  this  life  to  another,  from  earth 
to  heaven  or  to  hell,  is  so  close,  so  straight  and  direct,  that  iievei- 
fw^ill  you,  with  any  shew  of  reason,  succeed  in  interposing  any- 
thing between  them. 

For  the  proof,  were  anything  necessary,  we  should  go  to 
Roman  Catholic  preachers  themselves.  Is  it  not  a  very  curious 
and  withal  a  very  significant  lact,  that  when  they  follow  the 
Scripture,  in  order  to  speak  of  the  last  judgment,  they  are  led 
involuntarily  to  say  nothing  about  purgatory?  What,  ibr  ex- 
ample, says  Massillon  about  it,  in  his  sermon  on  the  i'ew^ness  of 
the  elect?  What  say  Bossuet,  Flechier,  Bordaloue,  about  if. 
when  the)'^  take  up  the  subject  in  that  sense,  and  keep  to  the 
promises,  threatenings,  and  figures  of  the  holy  books  ?  Is  it  not 
always,  just  as  in  Protestant  sermons,  the  good  on  the  right 
hand,  and  the  wicked  on  the  left,  the  good  seed  and  the  tares, 
the  wheat  and  the  chaff',  the  sheep  and  the  goats,  the  elect  and 
the  reprobate,  to  the  one  happiness,  to  the  other  misery  ?  But 
mark  what  is  still  more  significant.  The  Homan  Catechism,  in 
its  chapter  on  the  last  judgment,  one  of  the  most  complete  and 
biblical  in  the  wdiole  book,  says  nothing  about  purgatory,  does 
not  even  mention  it.  Elsewhere,  no  doubt,  it  speaks  of  it,  and 
at  great  length  too  ;  but  is  not  this  careful  development  of  the 
chief  texts  in  the  Bible  in  wdiich  the  last  judgment  is  spoken  of, 
without  a  single  word  that  leads  to  the  mention  of  purgatory, 
tantamount  to  an  admission  beforehand  of  the  little  foundation 
that  there  exists  for  what  is  said  about  it  afterwards  ? 

In  fine,  for  one  passage  where  it  might  be  maintained  that, 
strictly  speaking,  the  writer  was  not  logically  bound  to  mention 
purgatoiy,  you  will  find  a  host  where  it  cannot  be  admitted  that 
he  would  have  said  nothing  had  he  believed  in  it,  or  had  any 
idea  of  it. 

And  this  is  no  longer  a  question  in  theology  or  history;  it  is 
a  matter  of  common  sense  and  common  honesty.  Here  is  a  doc- 
trine of  fact,  purely  of  fact ;  a  question,  if  ever  there  was  such, 
to  be  decided  by  an  ay  or  a  no.  If  there  be  a  purgatory  the 
sacred  writers  must  have  spoken  of  it,  less  often,  if  you  will,  but 
quite  as  plainly  as  of  a  heaven  for  the  good,  and  a  hell  for  the 
bad.  But  mark,  not  a  word  have  they  said  about  it,  not  a  word 
'  at  least  that  does  not  primarily  mean  something  else,  and  which 


492  HISTORY   OF  THE  COUNCIL   OF    TRENT.  Book  VI. 

must  not  be  strained  hard  in  order  to  bring  that  meaning  out  of 
it.  Could  this  be  because  it  was  a  subject  in  which  few  were 
interested  ?  Purgatory,  on  the  contrary,  must  be  a  serious  affair 
for  all ;  if  there  be  such  a  place,  where  is  the  man  who  can  flat- 
ter himself  that  he  will  not  go  there  ?  Yet  this  point,  so  inter- 
esting, so  positive,  so  indispensable  to  be  known,  Jesus  Christ 
and  the  sacred  penmen  must  have  passed  hundreds  of  times  on 
the  right,  on  the  left,  above,  below,  without  touching  it,  without 
allowing  to  drop  from  their  mouths  or  pens  that  ay,  or  that  no, 
which  would  have  shed  light  on  one  whole  portion  of  eternity  I 
Ah  I  doubtless,  there  is  many  another  ay  and  many  another  no, 
about  which  we  fain  would  know  somewhat,  but  which  God  has 
kept  to  himself,  but  then  what  right  have  men  to  impose  theirs 
on  us  ?  The  Church  of  Rome  herself  has  never  held  herself 
authorized  to  teach  new  doctrines.  Her  infallibility,  according 
to  her  own  admission,  is  confined  to  the  infallible  determination 
of  what  has  been  taught.  What  value  then  can  be  attached  to 
her  testimony  in  favour  of  a  doctrine  of  fact,  when  once  we  dis- 
cover that  that  fact  is  nowhere  to  be  found  in  the  Scriptures, 
and  when  common  sense  proclaims  that  if  it  exist  at  all,  it  must 
have  appeared  there  at  almost  every  page  ? 

The  same  principles  apply  to  the  worship  of  the  Virgin.  Here 
again  we  have  a  positive  question,  a  fact  which,  if  it  ever  entered 
into  the  designs  of  God  at  all,  must  have  manifested  itself  more 
or  less  distinctly  from  the  earliest  days  of  Christianity.  The 
greater  the  importance  attached  to  it  by  the  Roman  Church,  the 
more  cogent  will  the  argument  be.  The  larger  the  space  that 
the  Virgin  shall  occupy  in  her  faith,  in  her  worship,  the  greater 
right  shall  we  have  to  ask  why  she  occupies  no  place  in  Scrip- 
ture, none  in  the  history  of  the  first  ages  of  the  Church. 

None  in  Scripture,  we  say.  In  the  four  Gospels,  first  of  all, 
there  is  not  a  word  to  indicate  that  Jesus  Christ  accorded  to  his 
mother  any  share  whatever  in  his  work,  neither  during  nor  after 
his  ministry  on  earth,  neither  in  this  world  nor  in  the  other, 
neither  as  acting  of  herself,  nor  as  an  intercessor  with  her  son  or 
with  God. 

"  Hail,  thou  that  art  highly  favoured,  the  Lord  is  with  thee  : 
blessed  art  thou  among  women."  "  Behold  the  handmaid  of 
the  Lord  ;  be  it  unto  me  according  to  thy  word  I"  And  some 
days  after,  when  she  began  to  comprehend  the  future  grandeur 
of  her  son,  "  All  generations,"  she  said,  "  shall  call  me  blessed." 

Yea,  blessed  indeed  was  she  whom  God  had  chosen  to  be  the 
mother  of  the  Saviour  I  Protestants  have  never  said  otherwise. 
But,  from  that  to  a  worship,  to  any  invocation  whatever,  the 


Chap.  IV.  15r.3.     WOUSIIIl'    Ol"   Till:    VIRGIN    NOT   IN    SCRIPTIRE.     493 

distance  is  great,  it  is  infinite.  This  very  word  blessed,  so  evi- 
dently applicable  to  any  one  who  has  been  the  object  of  a  great 
favour,  linds  its  commentary  elsewhere,  and  from  the  mouth  too 
of  the  Saviour  himself  "Blessed,"  exclaimed  a  woman,  "is 
the  womb  that  bare  thee,  and  the  paps  which  thou  hast  sucked." 
What  was  his  reply  ?  "  Yea,  rather  blessed  arc  they  that  hear 
the  word  of  God  and  keep  it."  Here  we  see  at  once  that  the 
simple  grace  of  being  a  believer  is  put  above  that  of  having 
given  birth  to  the  Messiah. 

Is  this  unique  privilege  represented  to  us  at  least  in  sucn  a 
manner  as  to  lead  to  the  belief,  that  she  could  avail  herself  of 
it  as  an  intercessor  in  behalf  of  men  ?  Why,  on  one  occasion, 
she  makes  a  request  to  her  son.  A  request,  this  is  saying  too 
much  ;  she  does  not  even  go  so  far  as  that.  Jesus  had  so  com- 
pletely separated  himself  from  her  in  all  that  bore  "  on  his 
Father's  business,"^  that  she  has  no  wish  to  seem  to  intermeddle 
with  it.  "  They  have  no  wine,"  she  said.  "  Woman,"  replied 
Jesus,  "  what  have  I  to  do  wdth  thee  ?"  He  then  performs  the 
miracle  ;  but  he  had  made  it  a  point  to  shew  that  it  was  not 
because  she  had  asked  him.  On  another  occasion,  when  told 
that  his  mother  and  his  brethren  wanted  to  speak  with  him — 
"Who  is  my  mother?"  said  he,  "who  are  my  brethren?" 
Then,  stretching  forth  his  hand  towards  his  disciples,  he  added, 
"  Behold  my  mother  and  my  brethren !  For  whosoever  shall 
do  the  will  of  my  Father  which  is  in  heaven,  the  same  is  my 
brother,  and  sister,  and  mother."  One  does  not  see  how  he 
could  better  have  expressed  the  idea,  that  in  so  far  as  he  was 
the  sent  of  God,  to  him  the  ties  of  blood  were  nothing.  Had 
these  words  never  been  recorded,  and  were  we  permitted  to  put 
them  into  his  mouth,  we  could  not  in  truth  have  found  any 
more  clearly,  more  positively,  expressive  of  our  view  of  the 
subject. 

So  much  for  the  four  Gospels,  In  the  book  of  Acts  there  is 
nothing,  absolutely  nothing,  that  allows  us  to  suppose  that  any 
power  was  owned  in  Mary,  or  any  homage  rendered  to  her. 
No  mention  is  made  even  of  the  respect  which  the  disciples 
could  not  have  failed  to  entertain  for  the  mother  of  their  mas- 
ter. "  All  continued  with  one  accord  in  prayer  and  supplication 
with  the  women,  and  Mary  the  motlicr  of  Jesus,  and  wdtli  his 
brethren."  Such  is  all  that  appears.  After  that,  and  it  occurs 
in  the  first  chapter,  her  name  is  no  more  introduced. 

In  the  Epistles,  finally,  even  in  those  which  must  have  been 
written  a  longer  or  shorter  time  after  her  death,  mark  this,  in 

^  "  How  is  it  that  ye  sought  me  ?  wist  ye  not  that  I  must  be  about 
my  Father's  business?"     Luke  ii.  49. 


494  HISTORY    OF  THE    COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  VI. 

those  even  of  that  beloved  disciple  to  whom  Jesus  when  expiring 
said,  "Behold  thy  mother!"  nothing  is  said  about  her;  she  is 
not  even  mentioned.  Words  fail  you  when  you  would  fully  ex- 
press how  inconceivable,  how  unheard  of  it  would  be,  that  she 
whose  worship  was  to  fill  so  important  a  part,  should  not  have 
had  even  a  page,  not  a  sentence,  not  a  line,  not  a  word,  not 
even  the  shadow  of  an  allusion,  among  so  many  letters,  ad- 
dressed to  so  many  churches,  full  of  so  many  lessons  and  instruc- 
tions on  all  sorts  of  subjects.  In  the  Apocalypse,  the  same  omis- 
sion ;  and  this  silence,  whatever  opinion  one  may  profess  with 
respect  to  the  doctrinal  authority  of  that  book,  is  still  more  sig- 
nificant, in  certain  respects,  than  that  of  the  Epistles.  Posterior 
by  five  and  twenty  or  thirty  years  to  all  the  rest  of  the  New 
Testament,  the  Apocalypse  might  have  been  subjected,  and  was 
in  fact  subjected  to  the  influence  of  more  than  one  new  idea. 
If  this  idea  were  then  in  favour,  had  it  even  begun  to  be  so, 
how  is  it  that  there  is  not  here  the  slightest  trace  of  it  ?  And 
yet  there  was  no  doctrine,  no  usage,  more  of  a  nature  to  find  a 
place  in  the  Apocalypse.  She  whom  Roman  mysticism  was 
afterwards  to  make  the  gate  of  heaven,  the  queen  of  angels,  the 
star  of  the  morning,  &c.,^ — how  shall  we  account  for  there  not 
being  the  smallest  place  for  her  in  that  magnificent  representa- 
tion of  the  celestial  magnificences  ?2 

Assuming  this,  although  it  could  be  proved  that  the  worship 
of  the  Virgin  dated  from  the  commencement  of  the  second,  or 
even  from  the  end  of  the  first  century,  already  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted as  hopeless  to  attempt  assigning  to  it  an  apostolic  and 
divine  origin. 

But  no.  Down  to  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century,  not  a  trace 
do  we  find  of  the  acts  of  homage  rendered,  or  to  be  rendered  to 

^  Janua  coeli,  Regina  angelorum,  Stella  matutina,  &c. — See  the  lit- 
anies. 

■■*  "Would  the  reader  know  how  one  of  the  historians  of  the  Virgin 
tries  to  escape  from  the  overwhehning  significancy  of  this  silence? 
Tlio  following  passage  occurs  in  the  Month  of  3Iary,  a  work  approved 
and  recommended  hy  several  bishops: — "For  the  celebration  of  tlie 
noblest  of  creatures  Scripture  has  but  a  fcM'  words,  tradition  but  a  few 
memorials,  whether  the  evangelists  and  doctors  wished  to  respect  the 
thick  veil  with  which  the  humble  Virgm  was  enveloped,  or  that  the 
human  idiom  cannot  attain  to  s%ich  altitudes."  Thus,  the  human  idiom 
sufhced  for  speaking  of  God,  and  of  the  Son  of  God ;  but  was  inade- 
quate to  the  task  of  speaking  of  the  Virgin.  Be  it  so.  But,  then,  why 
do  you  say  so  much  of  lier?  If  the  sacred  writers  had  so  much  respect 
for  "the  thick  veil  with  which  she  was  enveloped,"  why  remove  it? 
On  a  subject  on  which  "Scripture  has  but  a  few  words,  and  tradition 
but  a  few  memorials,"  why  these  long  histories,  long  romances  rather, 
which  you  put  into  the  hands  of  the  people? 


Chap.  IV.  1503.    WORSIIII'  OF  THE  VIRGIN  NOT  IN  THE  FATHER.S.  495 

the  mother  of  the  Saviour.  Wo  t'ulniil  that  lliero  were  early 
testimonies  of  respect  and  admiration,  amplillcations  more  or  less 
strong  on  her  glory  and  her  sanctity  ;  but  all  these  testimonies, 
all  these  amplillcations,  so  much  quoted  at  the  present  day,  are 
])recisely  the  strongest  points  we  should  have  to  adduce  against 
the  worship  which  some  make  bold  to  authorize  by  them. 

Of  all  those  declarations  which  Romanists  go  to  collect  among 
the  Fathers,  and  which  they  take  great  care  to  isolate  from  all 
that  might  throw  a  shade  over  them,^  how  is  it  that  we  do  not 
lind  one  in  which  we  find  a  practical  conclusion  ?  How  hap- 
])ens  it  that  none  of  those  writers  have  added  to  those  benedic- 
tions and  those  eulogiums,  either  that  the  Church  oflered  worship 
to  the  Virgin,  or  that  it  was  her  duty  to  ofler  it  to  her  ?  Where- 
fore, again,  do  the  liturgies,  the  catechisms,  the  histories,  the 
sermons  of  the  times,  make  no  mention  of  any  ceremony,  any 
practice  in  honour  of  her,  of  any  recourse  had  to  her  on  any  oc- 
casion, or  under  any  form  whatever  ?  Wherefore  does  Epipha- 
nius,  towards  the  close  of  the  fourth  century,  attack  the  honours 
which  some  Arab  women  had  paid  to  the  Virgin  ?  These,  it  is 
replied,  were  idolatrous  honours.  Not  more  idolatrous,  as  we 
could  shew,  than  those  enjoined  or  tolerated  at  the  present  day. 
But  it  is  not  even  possible,  with  that  writing  before  our  eyes,^ 
to  say  that  Epiphanius  meant  to  blame  excess  only.  In  that 
case,  the  best  mode  of  attacking  what  these  women  did,  would 
have  been  to  shew  what  the  Church  did,  Avhat  the  Church  au- 
thorized. But  there  is  nothing  of  the  sort.  He  condemns  with- 
out restriction ;  he  does  not  speak  of  any  worship,  of  any  com- 
mencement of  worship;  with  the  terras  he  employs,  and  the 
disdain  which  he  expresses,  we  are  not  even  permitted  to  suppose 
that  those  women  had  followed  the  impulsion  of  any  known 
doctor,  or  that  there  was  any  party  at  that  time  ready  to  declare 
itself  in  their  favour.  Thirty  years  afterwards,  when  the  dis- 
putes that  preceded  and  followed  the  council  of  Ephesus  were  at 
the  highest,  when  Ncstorius  was  deposed  for  not  having  wished 
to  give  Mary  the  title  of  Mother  of  God,  when  Cyril  and  Pro- 

^  Tertullian  (De  Carne  Christi  vii.)  comparing  Mary  to  the  sisters  of 
Lazarus,  thinks  that  she  was  inferior  in  devotcdness  and  in  faith.  Ori- 
gen,  (on  St.  Luke,  Homily  xvii.,)  Basil,  (Epistle  317,)  and  others,  still 
afldrm  that  she  was  scandalized,  shaken,  by  the  death  of  lier  sou.  Oth- 
ers, in  fine,  and  Chrysostom,  in  particular,  are  not  afraid  to  interpret 
as  a  reprimand,  the  words,  "  What  have  I  to  do  with  thee?"  There  had 
been  in  her,  they  said,  a  feeling  of  pride.  She  wanted  to  make  a  pa- 
rade of  the  supernatural  power  of  her  son.  This  is  not  our  view;  but 
it  is  clear  that  those  who  thought  thus,  and  who  wrote  thus,  had  no 
belief  in  Marj-'s  impeccability. 

2  ILrrsirs,  70. 


496  HISTORY   OF  THE   COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  VI. 

clus,  his  antagonists,  using  and  abusing  the  victory  which  the 
council  had  given  them,  were  celebrating  the  mysterious  gran- 
deurs which  seemed  to  them  to  be  involved  in  that  title,  well 
then,  in  these  very  sermons  in  which  Mary  is  magnified  as  much, 
and  more  perhaps  than  ever  was  her  Son,  there  is  nothing,  ab- 
solutely nothing,  to  indicate  an  established  worship,  or  a  worship 
to  be  established. 

We  need  not  go  farther.  The  idea  made  its  way  ;  the  wor- 
ship was  yet  to  come.  What  is  certain  and  incontestable  is, 
that  at  that  epoch  it  had  not  yet  come. 


CHAPTER   V. 

SAINT    WORSHIP.       HOW    SAINTS    ARE    MADE    AT    ROME. 

The  worship  of  the  saints — Silence  of  Scripture— Wliat  all  prayer  ad- 
dressed to  a  dead  person  pre-supposes — Pagan  objection — Luther 
and  the  saints — What  would  be  lost,  in  general,  by  not  praying  to 
them — The  worship  of  the  saints  forbidden  by  implication  in  many 
passages  of  Scripture — There  is  but  one  sole  Mediator — Abuse  of  the 
worship  of  the  saints — Has  it  ever  remained  and  can  it  remain  with- 
in the  limits  traced  by  the  council — The  common  people  invoke  them 
as  present  everywhere  and  as  possessing  power  of  themselves — 
Pi-oofs — Does  the  Church  combat  the  tendencies  of  the  common  peo- 
ple— What  would  be  thought  by  a  pagan  entering  Rome  again  after 
eighteen  hundred  years'  absence — Juliana  of  Liege  and  the  cut  in  the 
moon — A  mandement  of  the  Archbishop  of  Lyons — Falsehoods  and 
sophisms — ^The  Virgin  queen  of  the  universe — Proofs — Citations— 
The  mob  of  saints — How  they  are  fabricated  at  Rome — Relics  and 
worship  of  relics. 

What  shall  we  now  say  of  the  worship  of  the  saints  in  gen- 
eral ?  Here  we  must  pass  over  the  same  ground,  and  arrive 
very  nearly  at  the  same  conclusions. 

First,  then,  there  is  the  same  silence  on  the  part  of  the  sacred 
writers ;  the  same  absence  of  every  trace  that  it  could  have  ap- 
peared to  them  that  the  dead,  saints  or  not,  behoved  to  serve  as 
intermediates,  by  any  title  whatever,  between  the  living  and 
God.  Some  imperceptible  allusions  never  could  counterbalance 
so  complete  an  absence  of  all  teaching,  all  invitation,  all  orders 
on  the  subject  of  the  invocation  of  saints.  We  do  not  speak  of 
lessons  to  the  contrary  ;  that  would  carry  us  into  too  M'ide  a 
field.  When  the  preacher  says  that  the  dead  "  have  no  part 
more  for  ever  in  anything  done  under  the  sun,"'  that  "  they 
know  not  anything,"  where  is  the  exception  in  favour  of  the 
saints  ? 

Has  all  that  is  implied  in  a  prayer  addressed  to  a  dead  person 
been  in  fact  well  considered?  That  the  saints  have,  at  the 
present  moment,  access  to  the  presence  of  God  we  willingly 
admit,  albeit  that  at  first  what  was  said  by  Jesus  Christ  of  one 
sole  universal  judgment  at  the  end  of  the  world,  has  generally 

'  Eccles.  ix.  6. 


498  HISTORY   OF   THE    COU.N'CIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  VI. 

been  understood  in  its  literal  meaning.  ^  The  saints  pray  at 
present — ^be  it  so  ;  but  do  they  hear  you  who  pray  to  them,  and 
who  ask  them  to  pray  for  you  ?  Think  well ;  what  you  attrib- 
ute to  them  is  nothing  less  than  the  greatest,  the  most  incom- 
prehensible, the  most  essentially  divine  of  all  God's  attributes, — 
that  of  being  everywhere,  of  seeing  everything,  of  hearing  every- 
thing. What  I  a  man  who  but  yesterday  was  like  myself,  who 
like  me  both  saw  and  heard  within  a  very  narrow  and  impas- 
sable range,  who  could  no  more  than  myself  seize  at  one  and 
the  same  time  more  than  one  object,  one  idea,  one  word,^ — be- 
hold him  now,  like  God,  seizing  at  once  millions  and  hundreds 
of  milUons  of  objects,  ideas,  words  I  The  man  who  no  -more 
than  myself  could  read  what  passes  in  the  heart  of  a  single  fel- 
low-creature, behold  him  reading  what  passes  in  all  men's  hearts 
at  once  !  behold  him  in  Europe,  in  America,  in  the  lowest  mmes 
and  on  the  mountain  tops,  by  day,  by  night,  everywhere  and 
always  I  behold  him  instantaneously  and  simultaneously  taking 
in  all  the  words,  all  the  sighs,  every  slightest  emotion  of  the 
soul  into  which  the  idea  of  his  intercession  has  entered  I  For, 
in  fine,  if  he  is  to  hear  me  whenever  I  shall  address  myself  to 
him,  he  must  be  always  at  hand,  always  with  me,  always  with 
everybody  ;  you  cannot  suppose  that  there  are  places  where,  or 
moments  when,  he  will  not  hear  you.  Thus  no  middle  ;  either 
the  saints  have  not  the  faculty  of  hearing  you  at  all,  or  they 
have  it  in  the  same  degree  as  God.  God  no  doubt  may  have 
wished  that  it  should  be  so  ;•  but  the  greater  the  privilege  the 
more  must  we  insist  on  seeing  it  established  on  declarations 
authentically  proceeding  from  Him  who  alone  can  bestow  it. 
"  They  see  Him  who  sees  all,"  says  Gregory  VHI.,  "  of  what  then 
could  they  be  ignorant  ?"3  Idle  antithesis,  which  would  amount 
to  saying  that  one  cannot  see  God  without  becoming  his  equal. 
"  If  I  see  a  man  mounted  on  the  top  of  a  steeple,"  says  Du 
Moulin,  "  do  I  on  that  account  see  all  that  he  sees  ?" 

You  figure  to  yourself  the  peace  of  a  soul  that  feels  itself  sur- 

^  This  opinion,  so  manifestly  contrary  to  all  idea  of  invocation  and 
worship,  is  formally  taught  hy  several  of  the  fathers.  See  Irenseus, 
Against  Heresies,  v.  25;  Justin,  Dialogue  with  Typhoix;  Lactantius, 
Institutions,  c.  vii.  Note,  moreover,  that  in  remitting  to  the  last  judg- 
ment the  entrance  of  the  saints  into  heaven,  neither  these  authors  nor 
any  other  add  that  the  Virgin  gets  there  before  them. 

2  No  man  is  great  in  the  presence  of  his  valet,  it  is  said.  Are  there 
many  saints  whom  those  who  lived  on  familiar  terms  with  them  could 
seriously  invoke?  On  hearing  of  the  canonization  of  St.  Fi'ancis  de 
Sales,  "Ah,"  said  an  old  bishoj),  who  had  known  him  well,  "that  is 
fine,  but  the  fellow  cheated  furiously  at  piquet." — Memoircs  de  Talle- 
ma)it. 

^  Quid  est  quod  nesciant  qui  scicntem  omnia  sciant? 


Chap.  V.  1503.         THE    INVOCATION    OF    THE    SAFNTS.  490 

rounded  by  ro  many  friends,  that  cannot  breathe  a  sigh  without 
these  divine  messengers  disputing  in  some  sort  the  honour  of 
bearing  it  to  God.  This  is  very  nearly  what  the  pagans  said 
when  asked  to  renounce  tliose  countless  deities  who  also  encom- 
passed them  irom  the  cradle  to  the  tomb,  and  besieged  them  with 
their  constant  protection.  No  doubt,  looking  to  the  outward  side 
of  things,  the  Christianity  of  the  Apostles  was  singularly  cold 
and  bare  compared  with  those  poetic  creeds,  consecrated  by  so 
many  exquisite  works  of  art  and  by  ages  of  antiquity,  under 
which  not  a  city,  not  a  village,  not  a  house,  not  a  tree,  but  had 
its  tutelary  deity — not  a  man,  in  fine,  that  could  not,  in  every 
circumstance  of  life,  invoke  a  god  expressly  placed  at  his  service 
in  that  very  exigency,  so  that  the  slightest  volition  on  his  jDart 
might  have  a  divine  volition  at  its  command.  And  yet,  in  reality, 
which  was  best,  those  petty  gods  of  every  moment — supposing 
that  there  existed  such — or  one  sole  perfect  God,  great  enough 
and  good  enough  alone  to  do  as  much  and  more  than  they  all  ? 
Which  too,  since  we  are  compelled  to  touch  this  chord,  is  the 
grander,  the  more  beautiful,  the  more  really  poetic  also,  the  in- 
vocation of  all  those  subaltern  deities,  or  a  direct  and  intimate 
communication  with  Him  who  has  all  power,  and  who  fills  all 
space  ?  Thus  the  same  answer  that  was  made  to  the  pagans  we 
may  make  to  the  partisans  of  the  invocation  of  the  saints.  Duke 
George  of  Saxony,  one  of  the  greatest  enemies  of  the  E.eforma- 
tion,  as  he  sat,  in  1537,  at  the  bedside  of  a  dying  son,  exhorted 
him  to  leave  the  saints  to  themselves  and  to  think  only  of  Christ. 
The  dying  man's  wife,  a  Lutheran  at  heart,  gave  a  look  of  sur- 
prise. The  duke  noticed  it.  "  For  the  dying,"  said  he,  "this 
is  the  best  instruction  to  give."  It  is  in  fact,  and  we  love  to 
acknowledge  it,  what  all  truly  pious  priests  say  to  the  dying. 
When  the  danger  is  thought  at  a  distance,  you  find  for  yourselves 
insignificant  protectors  ;  when  it  presses,  if  you  have  not  forgot- 
ten Him  Avho  alone  and  of  Himself  can  save  you,  to  Him,  to  Him 
alone  you  feel  urged  to  cry.  But  if  this  doctrine  be  the  best  for 
the  dying,  why  should  it  not  be  so  for  all,  and  on  all  occasions? 
"  In  popish  times,"  said  Luther, ^  "  people  made  pilgrimages  to 
the  saints ;  they  would  go  to  Rome,  to  Jerusalem,  for  the  expia- 
tion of  their  sins.  And  now  we  still  make  pilgrimages,  but  it  is 
into  the  regions  of  faith.  We  go  not  to  Jerusalem,  but  straight 
to  God.  This  is  the  true  visiting  of  the  promised  land.  \\  hat 
are  the  saints  in  comparison  with  Christ  ?  Nothing  more  than 
the  small  dew-drops  of  the  night  on  the  head  of  the  spouse  and 
on  the  locks  of  his  hair  I"  Luther  was  a  poet ;  he  had  known 
enough  of  you,  ye  saints  of  both  sexes ;  he  had  worn  his  knees 

'  Table  Talk. 


500  HISTORY   OF   THE    COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  VI. 

before  their  images  ;  and  it  was  only  on  going,  as  he  would  say, 
"straight  to  God"  that  he  beheld  opening  before  his  steps,  hke 
anew  and  unknown  world,  the  regions  of  true  peace,  the  springs 
of  life  in  Christ.  This  that  we  have  told,  moreover,  applies  to 
more  people  than  one  would  think.  There  are  Ucman  Catholics, 
and  many  too,  and  the  most  pious,  who  do  not  believe  in  the 
intercession  of  the  saints ;  many,  at  least,  who  do  not  beheve 
in  it  for  themselves,  and  who  never  have  recourse  to  it.  Well, 
then,  when  these  would  go  to  God,  is  anything  wanting  to  them  ? 
Have  they  a  longer  journey  to  make  in  order  to  perceive  the  sun 
than  others  who  look  only  at  the  stars  ?  And  after  their  eyes 
have  once  been  turned  towards  Him  whom  the  Bible  calls  the 
"  Sun  of  Righteousness,"  is  there  perceptibly  less  peace,  less 
faith,  less  confidence  in  them  than  in  others  ? 

Shall  we  be  told,  then,  that  the  direct  way  is  not  prescribed, 
that  the  invocation  of  saints  is  not  enjoined  as  indispensable  to 
salvation,  that  the  Council  of  Trent,  in  fine,  only  recommends  it 
as  good  and  useful  ?  No  doubt,  when  the  sun  is  set  it  is  useful, 
it  is  good  to  have  the  stars  ;  but  as  long  as  it  is  above  the 
horizon,  what  need  have  we  of  them  ?  Let  us  speak  without  a 
figure.  It  is,  in  the  end,  as  a  resource  to  the  weak  that  the  in- 
vocation of  the  saints  is  recommended.  We  have  just  spoken,  in 
fact,  only  of  certain  choice  souls  who,  without  condemning  it,  do 
without  it,  and  are  none  the  worse.  Would  the  others  lose 
much  ?  That  is  the  question.  That  a  man  who  has  been  in  the 
habit  of  addressing  God  only  through  the  saints,  should  expe- 
rience at  first  no  little  embarrassment  in  addressing  him  alone, 
and  directly,  is  possible  enough  ;  but  is  any  embarrassment,  any 
stupefaction  felt  by  those  who  have  been  in  the  habit,  on  the 
contrary,  of  praying  only  to  God  ?  Are  there  things  of  which 
they  dare  not  speak  to  him  ?  If  there  be,  they  are  things  felt 
by  them  to  be  bad  or  unworthy  of  him,  and,  in  that  case,  it  were 
a  pitiful  service  to  render  them,  to  give  them  beings  to  pray  to,  to 
whom  they  shall  have  less  dread  of  opening  their  hearts.  Next, 
what  business  have  we  to  inquire  whether  this  be  the  more  or 
less  easy,  the  more  or  less  dangerous  way  ?  The  grand  point, 
and  to  this  we  must  ever  return,  is  that  God  has  not  pointed  it 
out  to  us.  Here  we  have  not  to  do  with  a  mystery  which  he 
might  have  meant  to  leave  in  the  shade.  The  question  of  prayer 
is  the  very  one  on  which  the  sacred  books  have  gone  most  into 
practical  details  ;  and  if  they  could  have  spoken  of  it  two  or 
three  hundred  times,  under  every  form,  and  on  all  sorts  of  occa- 
sions, without  enjoining  or  advising  what  the  council  declares  to 
be  useful  and  good — by  what  right  should  any  one  add  aught  to 
the  command  ever^-where  repeated,  to  address  ourselves  to  God, 


Chap.  V.  15fi3.      IMPLIED    PROHIBITION    IN    SCRIPTURE.  601 

to  seek  the  intercession  of  Christ  ?  Shall  \vc  be  told  that  there 
is  no  Ibrmal  prohibition  against  seeking  that  oi'  others  ?  What  I 
if  Jesus  Christ  be  formally  pointed  out  to  us  as  our  intercessor 
and  our  advocate,  if  he  be  represented  to  us  as  always  ready  to 
discharge  that  divine  office  for  us — does  not  this  imply  that  we 
are  prohibited  from  having  recourse  to  any  less  holy  and  less 
powerful  than  he  ?  Far  be  it  from  us,  however,  to  admit  that 
the  prohibition  is  merely  implied.  "  There  is  one  God,"  says  St. 
Paul,  "  and  one  Mediator  between  God  and  man,  to  wit,  Chri.st 
Jesus. "^  Yes,  say  Roman  controversialists,  one  sole  mediator 
of  redemi:>tio)i ;  but  that  docs  not  exclude  mediators  o/*  i;z?ercc5- 
sion.  Where  has  this  distinction  been  found  ?  Not  assuredly  in 
the  Bible,  where  intercession  and  mediation  are  constantly  con- 
founded. What  is  the  subject  in  hand,  in  fact,  at  the  ver}^  place 
from  which  the  passage  we  have  quoted  has  been  taken  ?  Why, 
prayer  in  general,  and  all  sorts  of  prayers.  "  I  desire,  therefore," 
says  the  Apostle,  "  that  first  of  all,  prayers,  requests,  supplica- 
tions, and  giving  of  thanks  be  made  for  all  men,  for  kings,  for 
.  .  .  "  &c.  How  maintain,  after  this,  that  the  mediation  of 
which  he  speaks  two  or  three  lines  farther  on  can  be  understood 
of  redemption  only  ?  Besides,  with  the  doctrine  of  indulgences, 
redemption  itself  passes  in  part  into  the  hands  of  the  saints. 
This,  Bellarmine  admits.^-  Thus,  even  were  the  above  distinc- 
tion as  well  founded  as  it  is  groundless,  the  Church  of  Rome 
cannot  take  advantage  of  it. 

"  Let  no  man,"  says  he  elsewhere,^  "  beguile  you  of  your  re- 
ward, in  a  voluntary  humility,  and  w^orshipping  of  angels." 
According  to  Bossuet,  this  refers  only  to  angels  viewed,  accord- 
ing to  the  neo-platonician  theor}'',  as  subaltern  creators  of  the 
universe.  That  opinion  may  have  given  occasion  for  the  prohi- 
bition, but  the  Apostle  speaks  in  general  terms.  There  must  be 
no  worship  of  angels,  u)uler  iiretext  of  humility.  Now,  the 
Roman  Church  does  not  go  so  far  as  to  teach  that  God  is  inac- 
cessible to  men  ;  it  is  from  humility,  then,  that  people  pray  to 
saints  and  angels,  and  thus  enter  fully  into  what  the  Apostle  has 
interdicted. 

Shall  we  once  more  cite  the  Apocalypse  ?  This  we  might  do. 
How  happens  it  that  the  saints,  who  are  represented  to  us  as 
surrounding  the  throne  of  God  have  nowise  the  air  of  having 
prayers  to  listen  to?  Let  a  Roman  Catholic  suppose  himself 
writing  that  book,  and  let  him  say  if  he  could  omit  such  a  de- 
tail ?  A  single  passage  has  been  adduced.  "Then,"  it  says, 
"  the  four  living  creatures,  and  the  four-and-twenty  elders,  fell 
down  before  the  Lamb,  having  every  one  of  them  harps,  and 
*   1  Tim.  ii.  5.  '  De  Indulgentiis,  i.  24.  ''  Coloss.  ii.  18. 


502  HISTORY    OF  THE   COUNCIL  OF  TRENT.  Book  VI, 

golden  vials  full  of  odours,  u-hich  are  the  j^fciyers  of  saints.'' 
Such  is  what  has  been  ventured  upon  as  a  set-off  to  the  over- 
whelming silence  of  the  Gospels,  the  Epistles,  and  the  rest  of  the 
Apocalypse ;  such  is  what  people  fancy  they  may  oppose  to  the 
direct  teaching  which,  in  that  crowd  of  passages  where  it  could 
not  fail  to  have  been,  sliines  only  by  its  absence.  Were  we  not 
afraid  of  appearing  to  accept  the  challenge  to  discuss  the  question 
on  this  field,  we  should  find  in  those  very  lines,  wherewithal  to 
refute  what  has  been  attempted  to  be  deduced  from  them.  First 
of  all,  throughout  the  whole  chapter,  we  find  the  subject  in  hand 
to  be  songs  of  praise.  Can  the  2?rayers  of  saints,  mentioned  in 
this  passage,  mean  anything  else  ?  No,  for  they  are  presented 
under  the  form  of  odours  or  'perfmnes  in  golden  vials,  which  is 
never  said,  and  which  cannot  anywise  be  said,  of  any  prayers 
Avhatever,  coming  from  whomsoever  you  will,  and  comprehend- 
ing all  sorts  of  demands.  Next,  who  present  those  prayers  ? 
The  four  living  creatures  and  the  four-and-ticenty  elders.  Do 
you  admit  that  there  are  in  heaA^en  four  living  creatures  and  four- 
and-twenty  elders  serving  intermediately  between  the  saints  and 
God  ?  It  is  a  figure,  will  you  say  ?  Be  it  so.  Under  this  figure, 
nevertheless,  there  is  formally  announced  this  fact — the  existence 
of  an  intermediate,  it  matters  not  who,  between  God  and  the 
saints.  No\\%  what  do  you  make  of  this  detail  ?  If  the  figures 
that  follow  have  a  dogmatic  value,  how  refuse  it  to  this  ?  In 
fine,  what  is  represented  to  us  as  thus  coming  to  God,  are  the 
inayers  of  the  saints.  Their  prayers /w  us  ?  That  is  not  said  ; 
and,  moreover,  in  that  which  is  cited  of  them  a  little  farther  on, 
the  living  are  not  in  question  at  all.  We  see  elsewhere  the 
saints  praying  for  the  Church,  for  the  salvation  and  the  peace 
of  men  in  general ;  but  not  a  trace  do  we  find  of  individual  pe- 
titions, of  prayers  which  they  bear  the  appearance  of  having 
heard  for  the  purpose  of  transmitting  them.  Such  is  the  utmost, 
we  repeat,  that  Romanists  have  been  able  to  adduce  in  favour 
of  the  invocation  of  the  saints. 

Now,  if  the  invocation  of  saints  is  neither  enjoined  nor  sanc- 
tioned by  Scripture,  all  the  more  may  Ave  say  this  of  the  abuses 
to  which  it  has  given  rise.  Thus  far,  in  fact,  according  to  our 
engagement,  we  have  combated  only  what  the  council  teaches; 
but  we  did  not  interdict  ourselves  from  following  out  what  the 
Church  has  done  or  allowed  to  be  done.  Of  all  the  points  above 
noted,  there  is  hardly  one  on  which  there  has  not  been  as  wide 
a  departure  from  the  decisions  of  Trent  as  those  decisions  them- 
selves are  a  departure  from  both  the  letter  and  the  spirit  of  the 
Holy  Scriptures. 


Chat.  V.  13(i3.      AUUSE   OF   THE   WOUSlIir   OT    SAINTS.  603 

In  vain  might  you  prop  up  a  system  with  good  proofs,  it  is 
always  a  serious  defect  not  to  be  capable  of  being  apphed  with- 
out being  altered.  We  shall  ask,  then,  in  the  first  place,  if  the 
worship  of  saints  is  generally  such  as  it  is  found  neccssar}'  to  rep- 
resent it  in  order  to  elude  our  objections  ? 

"  You  accord  to  them,"  we  have  said,  "  the  most  divine  of  all 
attributes,  that  of  being  everywhere  present."  This  it  has  been 
found  impossible  to  deny ;  but,  says  Bossuet,  "  Never  has  it  been 
thought  by  any  Roman  Catholic,  that  the  saints  could  know  of 
themselves  our  wants,  or  even  the  desires  by  which  we  pray  to 
them."  Never  has  any  Roman  Catholic,  we  admit,  taught  that 
the  saints  could  of  themselves  possess  this  astounding  power  ;  but 
how  many  are  there,  who,  in  praying  to  them,  make  this  distinc- 
tion ?  How  many  arc  there  who,  on  their  knees  before  the  image 
of  a  saint,  say  to  themselves,  have  ever  said  to  themselves,  "  He 
hears  me  not.  If  my  prayer  reaches  him,  it  is  through  the  in- 
termediate agency  of  angels,  or  by  a  revelation  from  God,  or  by 
a  vision  of  God  I"  For  such  are,  in  fact,  the  three  means  sug- 
gested by  Bossuet.  But  of  these  the  council  says  nothing  ;  no 
more  does  the  catechism.  The  imiversal  presence  of  the  saints 
is  admitted  by  implication  as  a  fact  in  every  invitation  to  pray 
to  them,  in  every  prayer  addressed  to  them  ;  there  is  not  one 
Romanist  in  a  hundred,  perhaps  not  one  in  a  thousand,  who, 
unless  under  the  influence  of  scruples  inspired  in  him  from  with- 
out, docs  not  absolutely  omit  this  reservation  without  which,  ac- 
cording to  Bossuet's  admission,  the  worship  of  the  saints  becomes 
an  insult  to  God. 

Moreover,  between  the  invocation  of  the  saints  as  intercessors 
only,  and  the  invocation  of  those  same  saints  as  having  power  to 
grant  answers,  as  omnipotent,  in  short,  as  gods — if  there  be,  as 
is  maintained,  an  abyss  in  point  of  theory,  there  is  not,  in  fact, 
more  than  a  step.  And  as  for  that  step,  how  many  pious  Roman 
Catholics  are  there  in  a  condition  to  keep  from  taking  it,  and 
who,  in  fact,  refrain  from  taking  it  ?  "VYe  have  had  occasion  to 
make  researches  on  this  subject  in  a  country  where  the  worship 
of  the  saints  and  of  the  Virgin,  although  much  difl'used,  still  is 
much  less  so  than  in  Italy  or  in  Spain  ;  and  not  only  have  we 
found  no  one  who,  in  the  spontaneous  movements  of  his  heart, 
has  not  always  suflercd  himself  to  run  at  once  into  the  invocation 
of  them  as  omnipotent  beings,  but  the  very  prayers  in  which 
they  are  called  intercessors,  do  not  in  general  prevent  their  view- 
ing them  as  something  very  diflL^ront.  We  have  seen  it  proved 
that  even  in  repeating  to  satiety,  "  Holy  Virgin,  pray  for  us,'^ 
the  idea  of  intercession  is  absorbed  in  that  of  a  direct,  absolute 
protection,  to  be  obtained  from  the  mother  of  Christ.     At  the 


504  HISTORY  OF  THE   COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  VI. 

very  moment  when  the  Hps  shall  be  opened  to  say  Pray  for  us, 
the  inward  feeling  is  just  the  same  as  that  which  might  be  trans- 
lated instantly  after  by  the  words,  "  The  holy  Virgin  bless  you — 
the  holy  Virgin  comluct  you — if  it  phase  the  holy  Virgin" — 
and  a  hundred  other  forms  of  language  in  which  the  Virgin  is 
openly  substituted  for  God. 

But,  says  Bossuet  again, ^  in  whatever  terms  the  prayers  ad- 
dressed to  the  saints  be  conceived,  the  Church's  intention,  and 
that  of  the  faithful,  reduces  them  always  into  this  form,  "  Pray 
for  us."  The  Church's  intention,  that  may  be  ;  the  intention 
of  the  faithful,  that  we  deny  ;  and  what  avails  the  Church's  ab- 
stract intention,  when  the  faithful  are  almost  inevitably  led  to 
intend  quite  otherwise.  When  a  beggar,  to  whom  you  have 
given  alms,  and  who  thanks  you,  as  is  usual  in  so  many  coun- 
tries, not  by  a  "  God  repay  you','  but  by  "  May  theVirgin  re- 
pay you,''  of  what  consequence  is  it  that  the  Council  of  Trent, 
which  he  has  never  heard  of  all  his  life,  has  reduced  his  prayer 
beforehand  to  an  intercessory  request  ?  The  Virgin,  or  God — 
in  his  mind  it  is  all  one.  He  gives  to  the  creature  without  any 
reserve  what  is  due  to  the  Creator  only ;  and  if  this,  as  has  been 
always  said,  constitutes  idolatry,  his  prayer  to  the  Virgin  is  evi- 
dently an  act  of  idolatry.  In  this  sense,  we  repeat,  are  there 
many  prayers  to  saints  of  which  we  may  not  say  as  much  ? 

Our  best  auxiliary  here  is  one  of  the  most  zealous  champions 
of  Roman  Catholicism,  the  man  who  has  most  contributed,  in 
our  days,  to  make  it  what  it  is,  Chateaubriand.  Withoiit  caring 
about  what  councils  have  forbidden  or  permitted,  he  does  not 
discuss,  he  paints,  and  his  pictures  have  hardly  a  feature  in  them 
that  does  not  confirm  our  criticisms.  "  The  sprightliest  and  the 
bravest  race  were  consecrated  to  Genevieve,  the  daughter  of  sim- 
plicity and  peace."  "  Those  shepherdesses  transformed  by  their 
virtues  into  beneficent  deities."  "  There  is  nothing,  even  to  the 
feeble  advantage  of  difference  of  sex  and  of  visible  form,  that  our 
deities  do  not  share  with  those  of  Greece."  "  The  deity  of  a 
saint  begins  with  his  felicity  in  the  regions  of  eternal  light."  "  It 
was  proper  that  the  female  saintof  the  woods  should  ivork  mir- 
acles." "  Those  martyrs  who  deserved  to  rise  to  the  rank  of  the 
celestial  powers."  "  For  the  man  of  faith,  nature  is  a  perpetual 
marvel.  Does  he  sufier  ?  He  yrays  to  his  little  image,  and  is 
comforted.  He  prostrates  himself ;  he  prays  to  the  saint  to  re- 
store to  him  a  son,  to  save  a  wife."  *'  Never  was  there  a  people 
so  surrounded  with  friendly  deities  as  the  Christian  people." 
"  Those  men  who  have  merited  to  be  adored."  Here  we  see 
Roman  Catholicism,  such  as  it  is ;  here  is  what  it  cannot  fail 

*  Exposition  iv. 


Chap.  V.  1563.     AN  ANCIENT   ROMAN    IN   MODERN    ROME.  505 

more  and  more  to  become,  as  long  as  its  heads  shall  believe  that 
they  liave  only  to  sheJler  themselves  behind  the  impotent  and 
deceptive  declarations  of  a  council. 

Do  we  see,  in  fact,  that  the  Roman  Church  tries  at  least  to 
struggle  against  that  irresistible  bent  of  the  nations  to  adore  that 
which,  we  are  told,  she  gives  them  only  to  revere  ?  Does  she 
insist  much  with  her  members  on  that  distinction  which  she  so 
loudly  proclaims,  when  she  has  to  prepare  a  reply  to  adversaries  ? 
We  know  not ;  fain  would  we  believe,  even  though  Ave  have 
strong  reasons  to  doubt  it,  that  there  are  no  Roman  Catholics  to 
whom  the  subject  has  not  been  clearly  explained,  once  at  least. 
But  precept  is  one  thing,  example  another ;  to  teach  seldom  and 
coldly  a  subtle  distinction  is  one  thing ;  very  difierent  is  the  re- 
sistless contagion  of  practices  repeated  every  day.  There  are 
countries  in  which  you  may  pass  tM^enty  years  without  seeing 
anything  that  does  not  lead  right  to  the  error  of  which  the  ad- 
mission is  forbidden.  Were  an  ancient  Roman  to  re-appear  in 
the  midst  of  Rome,  what  would  he  find  changed  there  but  the 
names  of  the  gods,  and  the  forms  of  the  sacrifices  ?  Could  he 
doubt  that  the  saints  that  give  their  names  to  the  temples,  that 
have  their  altars,  their  festivals,  are  not  the  deities  of  the  coun- 
try? That  Pantheon  which  he  had  left  consecrated  to  all  the 
gods,  he  finds  again  consecrated  to  all  the  samts ;  those  columns, 
those  pedestals  on  which  he  had  seen  Jupiter,  Romulus,  Trajan, 
or  some  other  deified  emperor,  he  now  sees  supporting  Peter  or 
Paul,  John  or  Mary.^  Would  you  tell  him,  then,  how  that  tem- 
ple of  St.  Peter  is  not  a  temple  of  St.  Peter  ?  Your  explanation 
he  will  not  find  it  easy  to  comprehend,  however  little  this  pagan 
may  have  remarked  the  foot  of  the  saint  to  have  been  AAorn 
away  by  the  perpetual  kissing  of  the  iaithful ;  well,  too,  will  it 
be,  if  he  fails  to  recognise  in  the  statue  that  of  an  ancient  Jupi- 
ter I  When  he  shall  see  the  Virgin  on  the  altar,  and  a  whole 
people  on  their  knees  before  her  ;  when  he  shall  hear  her  called 
— for  he  must  needs  understand  Latin,  and  in  this  respect  at 
least  will  have  the  advantage,  which  many  Christians  have  not, 
of  understanding  what  is  said  arliong  them — when  he  shall  hear 
her  called  by  all  those  magnificent  names  that  have  been  lavished 
upon  her  by  the  Church  of  Rome,  how  could  he  comprehend 
your  maintaining,  after  all  this,  that  you  do  not  make  her  a 
goddess  ?     How  could  he  comprehend,  most  of  all,  that  she  is 

'  The  very  title  Divus,  ordinarily  replaced  in  official  documents  by 
that  of  Beatus,  has  not,  however,  been  expelled  from  them.     "We  meet' 
with  it  once  or  twice  in  the  Acts  of  Trent.    "Would  it  have  passed  into 
the  language,  had  not  the  idea  which  it  involves  first  passed  into  men's 
minds? 

Y 


506  HISTORY    OF   THE    COUNCIL    OF  TRENT.  Book  VI. 

not  a  goddess  in  the  view  of  the  people  ?  He  will  hear  them 
chanting  Ora  ino  nobis ;  but  he,  too,  in  his  day,  often  addressed 
himself  to  the  inferior  deities,  to  ask  their  intercession  with  the 
princes  of  heaven,  and  those  deities  of  the  second  or  third  order, 
did  not  thereby  cease  to  be  considered  as  deities.  When  the 
jiioiis  ^Eneas  invokes  his  mother  Venus,  he  very  well  knows  that 
of  herself  she  can  do  nothing,  that  she  must  go  and  petition 
Jupiter ;  is  she  the  less,  in  his  eyes  and  those  of  his  people,  a 
high  deity?  Does  she  cease  on  that  account  to  have  temples 
raised  to  her,  to  have  sacrifices  offered  to  her,  to  be  treated  ha- 
bitually on  the  same  footing  with  Jupiter  ?  Direct  adoration  is 
nowise  incompatible,  in  fact,  with  the  idea  of  intercession ;  were 
this  generally  as  well  understood  as  it  is  little,  the  adoration 
would  remain.  And  how  many  prayers  to  saints,  besides,  whether 
in  the  most  widely  diffused  collections,  or  in  the  worship  itself, 
where  intercession  is  not  mentioned  I  How  many  others  in 
Avhich  it  occurs  only  at  the  close,  in  two  words,  and  as  it  were 
out  of  sight,  at  the  end  of  long  and  fervent  invocations  I  That 
famous  8uh  tuum,  which  you  hear  repeated  morning  and  even- 
ing in  all  the  Schools  of  Roman  Catholicity,  what  is  there  in  it 
more  or  less  than  a  prayer  to  (a)  god  ?  "  \Ye  take  refuge  under 
thy  guardianship.  Holy  Mother  of  God.  Despise  not  our  suppli- 
cations, but  from  all  perils  ever  deliver  us,  glorious  and  blessed 
Virgin."^  In  such  an  atmosphere — we  have  seen  it  proved — 
there  is  not  one — even  to  the  Lord's  Prayer,  that  the  perverted 
instinct  of  the  faithful  has  not  quietly  transformed  into  a  prayer 
to  the  Virgin.  That  prayer,  according  to  the  Catechism,  may  be 
recited  before  any  image  of  the  saint,  provided  the  reciter  have 
the  sentiment  that  the  saint  repeats  it  to  God.  How  many 
Romanists  have  any  such  sentiment  ?  AA  hen  Juliana  of  Liege 
saw  the  famous  cut  made  in  the  moon,  and  concluded  from  it 
that  God  was  distressed  at  having  no  festival,  while  all  the 
saints  had  theirs — it  was,  setting  aside  the  oddity  of  the  form  it 
took,  a  very  great  truth ;  but  has  the  festival  AA^hich  people  lost 
no  time  in  establishing,  the  F etc- D leu,  of  which  Liege  lately 
celebrated  the  six  hundredth  anniversary^  remained  at  least  a 
true  festival  to  God  ?  Not  at  all.  There  are  countries,  and  those 
^he  most  Roman  Catholic,  where  it  has  nothing  more  than  the 
name.  In  Italy,  in  Spain,  in  Provence,  the  Fete-JDieu  is  only  a 
new  festival  to  the  Virgin. 

Thus  Avhenever  the  worship  of  the  saints  has  been  developed 
freely  and  without  control,  God's  worship  has  been  more  and 

'  Sub  tuiim  prresidium  confugimus,  sancta  Dei  genetrix.  Nostras 
deprecationes  ne  despicias,  sed  a  periculis  cunctis  libera  nos  semper, 
Virgo  gloriosa  et  benedicta. 


Chap.  V.  15(53.     CARDINAL   DE    DONALD'S   MARIOLATRY.  607 

more  eflaccd.  "  You  might  steal  God  from  them  without  their 
noticing  it,"  said  some  one  in  describing  Italian  Catholicism. 
Nothing  more  true.  You  have  only  to  remove  the  name  of  God 
from  some  Latin  prayers,  where  it  still  remains,  and  all  would 
go  on  as  if  there  were  no  void  in  religious  worship,  and  without 
the  bulk  of  the  people  suspecting  any  change.  Were  a  new 
council  to  declare  that  God  no  longer  exists,  and  that  there  is  no 
other  deity  but  the  Virgin,  it  would  only  give  the  form  of  law  to 
what  already  exists  in  lact,  in  the  great  majority  of  certain  popu- 
lations. 

We  have  no  thought  that  any  such  sacrilegious  decree  will 
ever  be  passed,  but  it  must  be  admitted  that  with  this  exception, 
it  would  be  impossible  to  accord  more  to  the  Virgin  than  has 
been  accorded  to  her  in  our  days,  and  that  too  in  the  centre  of 
Europe,  in  France,  in  the  face  of  indignant  Protestantism  and 
sneermg  infidelity.  Instead  of  restraining  the  nations  while  in 
this  dangerous  downward  course,  the  Church  of  Rome  has  done 
her  best  to  urge  them  into  it.  Here,  as  in  so  many  other  things, 
all  that  she  could  not  have  destroyed  without  shutting  against 
her  certain  sources  of  influence,  she  has  thought  it  more  simple, 
and,  above  all,  more  advantageous  boldly  to  lay  hold  of  for  her 
own  purposes,  and  has  put  herself  at  the  head  of  all  those  natu- 
ral impulses  which  she  could  not  arrest.  It  will  not  be  her 
fault  if  iu  this  respect  France  shall  ere  long  see  nothing  to  blame 
in  the  superstitions  of  the  remotest  hamlets  of  Calabria.  We 
wish  we  could  quote  at  full  length  the  famous  mandemcnt  by 
which  a  cardinal  ^  has  inaugurated  this  new  era.  At  full  length, 
we  say,  without  omitting  the  few  lines  in  which  the  author  pro- 
tests against  all  assimilation  of  the  Virgin  to  God.  What  then 
is  the  amount  of  those  lines,  and  how  far  do  they  undo  our  ob- 
jections ?  We  have  not  said  that  the  Church  of  Rome  teaches  the 
deity  of  the  Virgin  ;  we  have  said  that  it  stimulates  people  to 
believe  in  it,  or,  at  the  very  least,  not  to  pray,  or  to  discharge 
any  duty,  or  to  live  or  to  die,  in  fine,  but  as  if  they  believed  in 
it,  and,  in  these  terms,  what  could  we  cite  that  could  better  con- 
firm our  assertions  ?  Wherein  do  a  few  details,  wherein  does  a 
distinction  so  very  refined  in  point  of  theory,  so  impossible  in 
practice,  anywise  restrain  the  outburst  of  those  tendencies  which 
as  a  whole  are  so  lauded  ?  From  the  very  opening  lines  behold 
the  worship  of  the  Virgin  carried  back,  according  to  the  author, 
to  the  first  days  of  Christianity.  ''  The  Saviour,"'  says  he,  ''  gave 
to  religion,  from  the  cradle,  a  companion  whose  gentleness  was 
to  temper  his  severity.  This  faithful  companion  was  devotion 
to  the  holy  Virgin."  From  the  cradle  I  Did  not  your  hand  be- 
'  Archbishop  of  Lyons,  November,  1842. 


508  HISTORY    OF  THE   COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  VI. 

come  withered  when  it  had  so  impudently  given  the  he  to  the 
silence  of  Scripture  !  The  author  recurs  to  it ;  he  is  dehghted 
with  it ;  he  seems  to  dread  that  the  expression  may  still  be 
wanting  in  preciseness,  and  thsit  from  the  cradle  may  be  thought 
to  mean  only  fro}?i  the  first  ages.  "  Religion  and  devotion  to 
the  Virgin,"  we  are  told,  "  came  down  together  from  the  holy 
mountain,  to  advance  together  to  the  conquest  of  souls.  Thence- 
forward tvherever  the  standard  of  salvation  has  been  unfurled, 
the  ensigns  of  Mary  have  been  seen  displayed."  What !  the  en- 
signs of  Mary  were  displayed  in  those  Churches  to  which  the 
Apostles  addressed  so  many  and  such  long  epistles,  without  say- 
ing a  word  about  them  ?  Cardinal  de  Bonald,  you  say  this — 
believe  it  you  do  not. 

And  how  have  they  advanced  together,  the  religion  of  Christ 
and  devotion  to  the  Virgin,  to  the  conquest  of  the  world  ? 
"  United  by  the  bond  of  a  common  origin,  and  of  one  same 
vocation,  these  tiuo  sisters  joined  hands."  Here  at  once  we 
have  equality,  if  not  between  God  and  the  Virgin,  at  least  be- 
tween the  two  worships  ;  and  the  equality  of  the  two  worships 
implies,  let  people  say  what  they  will,  in  the  view  of  the  im- 
mense majority  of  the  faithful,  equality  between  the  two  beings 
to  whom  worship  is  addressed.  Equality  I  Do  they  even  keep 
to  that  ?  The  maiidement  does  not  even  contain  a  phrase 
which  does  not  come  to  this,  "  See  how  much  more  agreeable, 
more  easy,  more  poetical,  and  more  cheering  is  the  worship  of 
the  Virgin  than  any  other  I"  The  author  admits  that  in  our 
"holy  books,  the  Spirit  of  God  throivs  a  luirdly  transiJarent 
veil  over  the  celestial  life  of  the  Saviour's  mother."  This  is  an 
ingenious  way  of  telling  us  that  she  is  very  little  mentioned 
there  at  all.  But  when  the  author,  some  lines  farther  on,  lays 
hold  of  the  narrative  of  the  marriage  at  Cana,  and  concludes 
from  it  that  one  may  and  ought  to  pray  to  the  Virgin  for  the 
supply  of  our  bodily  as  well  as  of  our  spiritual  Avants,  shall  we 
say  that  this  too  is  ingenious  ?  To  quote  this  incident  without 
quoting  the  words,  which  give  it  a  totally  different  meaning,^  is 
a  piece  of  ingenuity  such  as  we  are  not  in  the  habit  of  calling 
by  that  name.  And  how  many  details,  besides,  on  what  we 
may  ask  of  the  Virgin  to  have  alleviated  1  But  as  for  spiritual 
wants  they  are  hardly  spoken  of  at  all,  while  as  for  the  tem- 
poral, Mary  is  announced  from  one  end  to  another,  as  particularly 
ready  to  supply  them  !  The  more  of  those  wants  you  shall  have, 
the  more  easy  will  it  be  for  you  to  be  pious  ;  the  more  you  shall 
be  afraid  of  trials  and  of  death,  the  more,  to  judge  by  the  fer- 
vour of  your  prayers  to  Mary,  will  you  be  able  to  believe  your- 
'  Woman,  what  have  I  to  do  with  thee  ? 


CiiAr.  V.  l-,(;3.      THE    VIRUIN    MADE   E(^UAL   WITH    GOD.  609 

self  a  finished   Clirislian.     Tlie  worship  of  the  Virgin,  in  this 
point  of  view,  is  the  hospital  of  the  nnbeiieving.^ 

But  let  us  leave  this  new  source  of  danger,  which  would  lead 
us  back  into  the  general  discussion  of  the  question.  All  that  we 
have  said  we  might  support  by  quotations  ;  all  the  results  to 
which  we  point  are  admitted  by  the  mandcnient,  but  with  songs 
of  triumph.  "True  Catholics,"  says  he,  "pray  no  longer,  in 
some  sort,  to  Jesus,  except  through  Mary.  For  them  there  are 
no  festivals  without  her  ;  one  might  say  that  apart  from  her 
there  is  no  more  hope  for  them.  Her  name  is  found  incessant- 
ly on  their  lips,  and  her  image  in  all  their  hearts.  The  Church, 
far  from  opposing,  applauds  these  bursts  of  filial  piety.  From 
his  tempest-tossed  bark  Peter  turns  his  looks  constantly  to  the 
star  of  the  sea.  It  seems  that  God  lias  given  over  his  onnipo- 
tcnce  to  his  mother ''  Yes,  this  is  just  what  we  never  cease  to 
repeat,  it  seems,  to  look  at  the  Roman  Catholic  world,  there  is 
now  no  other  deity  but  the  Virgin.  Is  it  only  externally  so  ? 
So  it  is  alleged.  "Were  there  reason  in  this  allegation,  it  would 
be  a  singular  way  of  honouring  that  God,  "  strong  and  jealous," 
who  will  have  "  no  other  gods  before  him."^  But  mark  again 
the  archbishop's  words,  as  he  becomes,  without  suspecting  it, 
the  interpreter  of  the  true  sentiments  of  the  people,  "  Could 
we,"  he  says,  "fail  to  direct  our  eyes  toAvards  that  celebrated 
sanctuary,  whence  a  tender  mother  watches  lovingly  over  her 
family,  where  sits  a  'powerful  queen,  ivliose  hand  has  raised  a 
dyke  to  restrain  the  impetuosity  of  the  biUou's  ?"  See,  in  spite 
of  all  fine  distinctions,  what  it  comes  to  at  last.  It  is  no  longer 
God,  as  formerly  in  the  Bible,  that  says  to  the  waves,  "  Thus 
far  shalt  thou  come  and  no  farther,"  it  is  the  Virgin. 

Shall  we  now  adduce  some  of  the  countless  passages  in  which 
the  popes  have  made  themselves,  with  still  more  frankness  and 
recklessness,  the  interpreters  of  the  same  sentiments?  W'hat 
shall  we  say,  in  particular,  of  those  expressions  that  occur  so 
often  in  their  decrees,  in  which  the  saints  are  represented  as 
punishing,  avenging,  fulminating  ?  We  shall  not  go  back  to 
John  XXII.,  excommunicating  Lewis  of  Bavaria,  and  saying, 
"  May  the  wrath  of  God  and  his  Apostles  Peter  and  Panl 
kindle  upon  him,  in  this  world  and  the  next  I"  "VVe  shall  not 
go  to  Leo  X.  excommunicating  Luther  ;  that  piece,  admirably 
composed  in  other  respects,  in  which  the  pontiff"  conjures  all  the 
saints  to  rise  against   the   heresiarch,  is  known  to  have   been 

'  We  know  that  Scripture  often  calls  unbelieving,  not  those  who  be- 
lieve in  nothing,  but  those  who  believe  without  having  the  strength  to 
be  Christians. 

-  First  Commandment. 


510  HISTORY  OF  THE  COUNCIL    OF  TRENT.  Book  VI. 

modelled  after  that  in  wliich  Cicero,  iii  his  famous  De  Sig?iis, 
invokes  the  wrath  of  the  gods  on  the  profaners  of  their  altars. 
All  the  bulls  that  relate  to  the  Council  of  Trent  are  closed  with 
these  words,  "  "Whosoever  shall  have  contravened  this  let  him 
know  that  he  Avill  incur  the  indignation  of  God,  and  of  his 
Apostles  Pete?-  ami  Paul.''''  Now,  there  are  but  two  senses  in 
which  you  can  understand  this  formula,  which  is  to  this  day  in 
use  ;  either  Peter  and  Paul,  in  their  indignation  at  the  guilty 
person,  will  punish  him  at  their  own  instance,  and,  in  that  case, 
you  make  them  gods-;  or,  powerless  of  themselves,  they  shall 
call  upon  God  to  punish  them.  A  fine  part  truly  to  assign 
them.  On  one  sole  occasion  in  the  Gospels  do  the  Apostles  think 
of  speaking  against  the  guilty.  "  Ye  know  not,"  says  the 
Master  severely,  "  what  spirit  ye  are  of."  And,  behold,  we  are 
to  look  upon  them  in  heaven,  making  themselves  accusers,  and 
counsellino:  revenge  I  But  no  ;  it  is  not  thus  that  the  matter  is 
understood.  One  would  blush  at  the  thought  of  St.  Paul,  or  St. 
Peter,  or  Mary,  above  all,  approaching  the  throne  of  God  for  the 
purpose  of  pointing  out  victims  to  be  smitten  by  his  wrath.  In 
spite  of  themselves  Romanists  keep  to  the  first  alternative  ;  com- 
pelled to  choose  betwixt  making  the  saints  informers  and  ac- 
cusers, or  gods,  they  cannot  hesitate.  Not  that  they  plainly  say 
to  themselves,  "  these  are  gods,  they  have  the  power  to  punish  ;" 
but  it  is  as  gods  that  they  are  dreaded,  it  is  as  gods  that  people 
are  tau2:ht  to  dread  them. 

So  much  for  the  formulas  in  which  the  divinity  of  the  saints 
is  tacitly  assumed,  and  which,  as  they  excite  no  suspicion,  only 
serve  the  better  to  make  it  believed  without  people  being  aware 
of  it.  But  if  we  would  now  have  more  direct  declarations,  the 
papal  bulls  will  supply  them  abundantly.  In  these,  for  the 
most  part,  there  are  no  restrictions ;  no  prudent  protests,  which, 
as  in  the  case  of  Cardinal  de  Bonald's  mandement,  if  they  do 
not  ser'ously  guard  against  any  error,  permit,  at  least,  the  author 
to  plead  afterwards  that  it  was  not  his  fault.  Take,  for  exam- 
ple, a  piece  which  we  have  already  often  cited,  the  encyclical 
letter  of  1832.  God  is  there  invoked,  but  only  at  the  close  in  a 
few  frigid  lines,  as  one  would  speak,  in  a  letter,  of  some  great 
useless  personage — too  great,  however,  to  be  entirely  set  aside. 
But,  at  the  commencement,  "  This  letter  is  addressed  to  you  on 
that  auspicious  day  on  which  we  solemnize  the  assumption  of 
the  Virgin  into  heaven,^  in  order  that  she,  Avhom,  in  the  mid.st 

^  It  is  known  that  the  Roman  divines  are  not  agreed  as  to  what  is  to 
be  understood  by  this.  Some  will  have  it  that  the  A^irgin,  like  Jesus 
Christ,  had  a  true  ascension;  others  that  she  was  resuscitated  and  as- 
eeiuled  to  heaven,  but  not  corporeally,  forty  days  after  her  death.     In 


Chap.  V.  1:.G:{.  THE    VIR(;1N    AND   TIILI    SAINT.S.  SH 

of  tlic  {xrcatost  calamities,  ^vu  have  recognised  as  patroness  and 
libcratrix,  may  be  no  less  favourable  at  the  moment  in  wliicli 
we  write,  and  that  with  her  heavenly  breath  she  may  inspire," 
&c.'  Give  this  letter  to  a  man  who  knows  nothing  of  Chris- 
tianity :  he  will  have  read  three-fourths  of  it  before  having  a 
doubt  that  the  A^irgin  was  not  the  deity  of  Christians,  and  tlie 
pope  her  high  priest.  A  year  afterwards  the  pope,  in  referring 
10  that  piece,  says  that  he  wrote  it  "  with  assistance  from  above, 
and  i^articidarlij  under  the  auspices  of  the  Virgin."-  In  line, 
that  same  year,  in  a  brief  to  the  Bishop  of  Rcnnes,  we  find, 
"  After  having  implored  the  protection  of  the  most  holy  virgin, 
mother,  sovereign,  guide,  and  mistress  of  all  men."^  After  that, 
maintain  if  you  can  that  you  do  not  teach  the  people  the  divini- 
ty of  the  Virgin.  Had  the  Council  of  Trent  ordained  its  being 
taught,  could  you  have  said  more  ?  In  1849,  the  Eoman  bish- 
ops assembled  at  Imola,  wrote  to  Pius  IX.,  felicitating  him  on 
the  re-establishment  of  his  authority  ;  and  the  pope,  in  his  reply, 
commends  them  for  having  taken  care,  above  all,  to  acknow- 
ledge that  that  event  had  been  due  to  the  protection  of  the 
Virgin.  One  may,  without  being  a  Protestant,  see  something  a 
little  odd  in  this  idea,  for  it  is  almost  tantamount  to  admitting, 
that  God  might  likely  enough,  but  for  the  Virgin,  have  left  the 
pope  at  Gaeta,  and  the  republic  at  Rome  ;  but  of  what  conse- 
quence is  one  absurdity  more  or  less?  the  essential  matter  is 
the  consolidation  of  a  worship  from  which  they  look  for  every- 
thing. 

"We  have  spoken  hitherto  only  of  the  Virgin  and  the  principal 
saints.  Juvenal  laughed  in  his  sleeve  at  the  mob  of  the  Roman 
gods  ;  is  the  mob  of  saints  much  more  respectable  in  the  eyes  of 
a  religion,  we  do  not  say  enhghtened,  but  only  not  quite  blind  ? 
You  ridicule  the  idea  of  Roman  emperors  becoming  gods  by  a 
decree  of  the  senate  ;  can  Rome  warrant  the  sanctity  of  any  one 

both  cases  it  lias  been  agreed  that  the  Avord  assumption  should  be  used, 
indicating  that  she  was  taken  up  into  heaven,  not  that  of  ascension, 
which  would  indicate  that  she  had  gone  up  thither  of  herself.^  The 
common  people,  of  course,  see  no  difference  here,  and  the  ascension  of 
Mary  on  the  loth  of  August  is  a  far  grander  festival  than  the  ascension 
of  Christ.  Note,  that  the  assumption  has  not  yet  been  raised  to  be  an 
article  of  faith:  the  Church  advises  people  to'believe  it,  but  does  not 
command  them  to  do  so.  To  institute  a  festival  in  commemoration  of 
an  event  which  Rome  dares  not  affirm  to  have  ever  taken  place,  is 
still  more  whimsical  than  it  would  be  frankly  to  decree  its  reality. 

*  Ut  quam  patronam  ac  sospitem  persensimus — ipsa  et  scribentibus 
adstet  propitia— mentemque  nostrani  cadesti  afHatu  suo  in  ea  inducat 
consilia. 

-  Brief  to  the  Archbisliop  of  Toulouse. 

^  Qua"  omiuum  mater  est,  domina,  dux  ot  magistra. 


512  HISTORY   UF    THE    COUNCIL    OF   TRENT.  Book  V], 

of  the  personages,  with  whom  she  has  peopled  heaven  ?  The 
pope,  even  m  the  opinion  of  those  who  think  him  otherwise  in- 
fallible, is  not  so  with  regard  to  facts.  He,  like  anybody  else, 
may  be  seduced  by  outward  shows  of  sanctity.  We  do  not  ex- 
pect to  have  objected  to  us  the  miracles  of  which  the  pope  insists 
on  having  proofs  before  proceeding  to  canonize.  AYe  are  well 
aware  that  the  process  is  alway  very  long,  and  still  more  very 
dear  ;  but  as  we  know  of  no  case  in  which,  with  patience  and 
^^'ith  money,  the  petitioners  for  canonization  have  not  succeeded 
in  their  object,  we  have  hardly,  we  confess,  any  more  confidence 
in  the  impartiality -of  the  tribunal  than  in  its  infallibility.  Be- 
sides, there  are  many  saints  whose  canonization  has  not  even 
been  surrounded  with  this  vain  guarantee.^  The  pope,  in  fine, 
it  is  further  admitted,  may  be  led  into  error  in  the  matter  of 
the  miracles,  as  well  as  in  his  estimate  of  the  virtues  of  the 
person  to  be  canonized.  Accordingly,  this  personage  who  is 
offered  to  you  as  a  protector  in  heaven,  alas  I  may  possibly  be 
in  the  deepest  pit  of  hell.  The  Church  of  E.ome  once  made 
more  than  one  saint  of  whom  she  does  not  boast,  and  whom  she 
would  be  very  well  pleased  to  expunge  from  her  catalogue.  If 
she  wa«  mistaken  with  respect  to  these,  who  shall  warrant  her 
not  being  so  as  respects  others  also  ?  Martyrdom  itself  is  not  a 
proof  of  sanctity.  "  Though  I  give  my  body  to  be  burned," 
saith  St.  Paul,  "  and  have  not  charity,  it  profiteth  me  nothing." 
A  man  may  thus  go  to  the  stake  for  the  glory  of  God,  and  yet 
be  no  true  saint. 

It  is,  nevertheless,  on  the  credit  of  their  martyrdom  alone,  that 
a  host  of  saints  are  held  forth,  in  the  Roman  Church,  to  the 
veneration  of  the  nations.  Of  that  number  there  are  many  of 
whom  absolutely  nothing  beyond  this  circumstance  is  known, 
which  does  not,  however,  prevent  the  fabricating,  or  the  permis- 
sion to  fabricate,  admirable  histories  of  them  ;  nay,  there  are 
some  whose  martyrdom  is  as  little  certainly  known  as  anything 
else.  One  feels  petrified  with  surprise  and  indignation  on  learn- 
ing the  manner  in  which  a  good  number  of  those  demigods  are 
created  at  Rome,  whose  mortal  remains  are  displayed  on  the 
altars  of  Roman  Catholic  Christendom.  It  is  in  the  catacombs, 
in  ancient  Christian  cemeteries,  wherever,  in  short,  there  is  a 
chance  of  finding  any  bones  of  the  first  centuries,  that  a  provi- 
sion of  new  saints  is  made  from  time  to  time.  Formerly,  no 
tombs  were  ransacked  but  such  as  bore  certain  inscriptions  and 
emblems,  but  it  is  long  since  no  such  scrupulosity  has  been 

*  We  know  that  the  right  of  canonization,  now  reserved  to  the  pope, 
once  belonged  to  the  bishops. 


Chap.  V.  1563.  ABSURDITY   OF   RELIC-WORSHII'.  513 

shewn. ^  The  bones,  accordingly,  arc  taken  up  and  committed  to 
certain  persons  whose  olHce  it  is  to  clean  them  ;  next  the  car- 
dinal-vicar or  the  sacristan-bishop-  of  the  pontifical  chapel,  puts 
them  into  a  box  which  he  seals.  What  are  called  testimonial 
letters  are  then  drawn  up,  bearing  that  these  bones  are  certainly 
relics,  and  that  they  may  be  exposed,  in  any  church  whatever,  to 
the  veneration  of  the  faithful.  If  the  body  be  entire,  the  signa- 
ture of  the  cardinal  is  attached  to  them  ;  if  there  be  only  frag- 
ments, that  of  the  bishop.  If  the  name  of  the  defunct  be  un- 
known, which  often  happens,  one  is  given  to  him.  And  thus  on 
the  old  horizon  of  Rome  there  have  lately  arisen  St.  Pruden- 
tissimus,  St.  Felicissimus,  and  many  others. 

"What  can  we  add  to  these  details  ?  To  worship  kno\vn  saints 
is,  no  doubt,  a  deplorable  error,  but  at  least  one  can  understand 
it ;  to  worship  saints  of  whom  we  know  not  the  life,  the  death,  or 
so  much  as  the  name,  beings  of  whom  we  possess  nothing  but 
bones,  which  possibly  belonged  to  persons  who  were  neither  saints 
nor  martyrs,  nor  even  Christians,  is  not  this  the  lie  2)lus  zdtra  of 
impudence  among  those  who  place  them  on  the  altar,  and  of 
imbecility  on  the  part  of  those  who  pray  to  them  ? 

For  the  rest,  there  are  not  many  ancient  relics  having  an  au- 
thenticity so  clearly  proved  as  not  to  make  it  at  least  imprudent 
to  make  them  objects  of  worship.  To  the  uncertainties  add  the 
improbabilities  \^  to  the  improbabilities  the  evident  impossibili- 
ties ;^  to  the  impossibilities  the  frauds,  still  innumerable,  to  judge 
by  those  that  have  been  discovered  ;^  and  see  if  the  worship  of 
relics,  even  supposing  it  to  remain  within  the  limits  traced  by 
the  council,  that  is  to  say,  without  any  alloy  of  superstition  or 
adoration,  be  not  one  of  those  things  that  have  done  most  to  dis- 
figure Christianity. 

'  See  a  curious  dissertation  of  Father  Mabillon,  intituled,  Lettre 
d^Eusebe  Romain  a  T/ieophile  Frangais,  sur  la  cidte  dcs  sai7its  i)icounus, 
1697. 

^  The  cardinal-vicar  is  the  vicar  of  the  pope,  in  so  far  as  tlie  pope  is 
bishop  of  Rome.     He  discharges  the  functions  of  bishop  in  the  city. 

^  What  likelihood  is  there  that  so  many  objects,  originally  of  no  value, 
should  nevertheless  have  been  preserved  ? 

*  Saints  with  several  heads,  several  bodies,  bits  of  the  true  cross,  "as 
many  as  would  load  a  large  boat,"  says  Calvin,  <fec. 

*  At  Geneva,  for  example,  the  famous  skull  of  St.  Peter  is  found  to 
be  a  piece  of  pumice-stone.  And  the  blood  of  St.  Januarius  ?  It  is  said 
that  the  clergy  of  Naples  are  now  beginning  to  be  sufficiently  embar- 
rassed by  it,  having  no  mind  either  to  admit  the  farce  or  to  continue  it. 


CHAPTER    YI. 

lAIAGE    WORSHIP   AND   INDULGENCES. 

"Worship  of  images — The  Second  Commandment — Fraud — Discussion — 
If  the  images  are  nothing  in  themselves,  "W'hy  are  some  more  vene- 
rated than  others — Is  the  worship  of  images  really  different  from 
what  it  was  among  the  pagans — The  worship  of  the  Virgin,  worship 
of  beauty — Questions  to  her  worshippers — Indulgences — Historical 
review — The  council  tries  to  purify  the  practice,  but  leaves  all  the 
obscurities  of  the  theory  untouched — Discussion — Several  xoherefores 
— Ridiculous  facilities — Although  salvation  were  to  be  bought,  the 
greatest  of  the  saints  would  not  have  wherewithal  to  pay  for  it — It 
is  a  matter,  therefore,  in  which  none  except  Jesus  Christ  can  lend  aid 
to  any  one. 

One  word  more  on  this  worship  and  that  of  images.  Let  us 
observe  first : 

1.  That  there  is  nothing  said  of  it  in  history  or  in  the  first 
times  of  the  Church,  although  it  might  have  been  very  easy  for 
the  faithful  of  Judea  to  have  images,  and,  still  more,  relics  of 
Jesus  Christ. 

2.  That  if  the  old  law,  altogether  material  in  so  many  re- 
spects, absolutely  banished  it,  the  greater  reason  have  we  to  con- 
sider it  as  incompatible  with  the  lofty  spirituality  of  the  new."^ 

Here,  accordingly,  the  Church  has  been  obliged  to  have  re- 
course to  a  fraud  which  would  be  hardly  credible  were  it  less 
easily  verified.  Of  the  ten  commandments  of  God  there  is  not 
one  more  positive,  more  clear,  more  detailed,  than  the  second. 
"  Thou  shalt  not  make  unto  thee  any  graven  image  or  any  like- 
ness of  anything  that  is  in  heaven  at)ove,  or  that  is  in  the  earth 
beneath,  or  that  is  in  the  water  under  the  earth  ;  thou  shalt  not 

'  One  is  confounded  to  see  how  little  certain  persons  disquiet  them- 
selves about  setting  themselves  in  opposition  not  only  to  the  spirit  but 
to  the  very  words  of  the  most  formal  scriptural  declarations.  "  But 
the  hour  cometh,  and  now  is,"  saith  Jesus  Christ  (John  iv.),  "  when  tlie 
ti'ue  worshippers  shall  worship  the  Father  in  spirit  and  in  truth :  for  the 
Father  seeketh  such  to  worship  him."  "  At  the  present  da}-,"  says 
Audin  i^Vie  de  Calvin),  "one  must  see  that  prayer  requires  external  ex- 
citations, tliat  the  ignorant  soul,  in  order  to  fly  to  God,  requires  mate- 
rial signs,  and  that  worship  in  truth  is  a  mere  abstraction." 


CriAP.  VI.  1JG3.     TWO  COMMANDMENTS  UNITED  IN  THE  VULGATE.     015 

bow  down  thyself  to  them,  nor  serve  them."  Certainly  this  is 
embarrassing.  Before  such  a  law  there  is  no  way  of  saying,  as 
with  respect  to  the  M^orship  of  the  saints,  "  We  do  not  adore 
them,  we  only  pay  them  certain  marks  of  homage."  No,  the.  ^ 
commandment  has  anticipated  all  this.  "  Thou  shalt  not  bow  ^"^ 
down  before  images  ;"  it  matters  not  with  what  feelings.  "  Thoii 
shalt  not  bow  down  thyself  to  them  nor  serve  them,"  neither 
in  the  way  of  veneration,  consequently,  nor  of  adoration.  Ob- 
serve, in  fact,  that  this  prohibition  cannot  be  made  to  mean  only 
forbidding  an  approach  to  images  with  such  feelings  as  we  ought 
to  have  towards  God  alone.  "  Thou  shalt  have  no  other  gods 
before  me,"  is  said  in  the  preceding  commandment.  Here,  then, 
we  have  the  formal  interdiction  of  all  adoration  not  having  God 
for  its  object.  It  is  clear,  therefore,  that  what  follows  bears  not 
upon  the  feeling  but  upon  the  act  itself.  "VYhatever  notions  you 
may  have  with  respect  to  the  image,  whatever  efibrts  you  may 
make  to  avoid  adoring  it,  from  the  moment  that  you  bow  down 
before  it,  from  the  moment  you  give  it  any  worship  whatever, 
the  commandment  is  violated.  The  Jews  never  undeistccd  it 
otherwise. 

In  the  Vuloatc,  however,  and  when  the  commandments  have 
to  be  quoted  at  length,  Romanists  unite  the  second  with  the  first, 
an  arrangement  which  the  Jews  have  never  admitted.,  and  whicli 
was  admitted  in  the  Church  only  on  the  credit  of  St.  Augustine, 
without  ever  having  been  positively  decreed.  In  analyzing  the 
Decalogue, 1  Chateaubriand  follows  the  Hebrew  text.  Bossuet, 
warmly  pressed  by  one  of  the  ablest  controversialists  of  his  time,'-^ 
replied  that  he  was  ready  "  to  accommodate  himself,  if  wished, 
to  the  arrangement  ibllowed  by  his  adversaries  ;"  and  he  con- 
tinues to  support  the  opinion  of  which  we  have  shewn  the  im- 
probability, to  wit.  that  this  commandment,  as  the  mere  comple- 
ment of  the  first,  forbids,  not  the  honouring,  but  only  the  ador- 
iiiir  of  images. 


Although  the  prohibition  were  capable  of  being  thus  Tnter- 
preted,  which  we  formally  deny,  it  would  still  remain  to  be  seen 
if  this  distinction  bo  observed,  and  if  it  can  be  observed.  All 
the  dangers  which,  w:a  lijiA^cjiotJcedJn  the  worship  of  saints  you 
find  also  hele.  ""We  axlore_Go4%efore~4he  image,"  said  Inno- 
cent III.,  ''and  not  the  image  before  God."  Wc !  Here,  no 
doubt,  we  have  another  instance  of  what  we  have  seen  called 
elsewhere  as  the  intention  of  tlie  Church,  that  invisible  correc- 
tion of  all  practical  errors,  of  all  individual  idolatries.  As  if  in 
God's  sight  there  was  anything  but  individuals  I  As  if,  with  idol- 
atrous thoughts  and  sentiments,  one  could  not  be  an  idolater,  be- 

'  G6nio  dn  Christianisme.  '  Xoquier. 


516  HISTORY  OF  THE    COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  VI. 

cause  the  Church  has  not  categorically  prescribed  his  being  so ! 
It  was  in  vain  for  the  council  to  teach  that  if  the  Church  honours 
images,  it  is  not  that  she  believes  that  they  have  any  divinity, 
any  virtue,^  but  because  the  honour  redounds  to  those  whom 
they  represent.  Although  to  prostrate  one's  self  before  creatures 
would  of  itself  be  going  infinitely  too  far,  in  the  very  temples 
of  God,  before  his  face,  as  the  commandment  says — are  there 
many  people  who  know  at  least  that  they  must  keep  to  that, 
and  who  really  address  to  the  saints  all  the  honours  paid  to  their 
images  ?  Are  there  in  Italy,  in  Spain,  wherever  the  worship  of 
saints  has  been  fully  developed,  and  where  nobody  cares  about 
Protestant  objections,  are  there,  we  say,  many  to  whom  it  is  a 
matter  of  indifference  whether  it  be  to  such  or  such  a  madonna, 
to  such  or  such  an  image  of  the  same  saint  that  they  address 
themselves?  "Will  you  find  at  Marseilles  many  mariners  who 
would  embark  after  having  prayed,  not  to  their  ancient  patroness, 
Our  Lady  cle  la  Garde  but  to  Our  Lady  of  some  other  place  ? 
Yet  they  very  well  know  that  there  are  not  several  Virgin  Marys. 
If  their  homage  be  paid  only  to  her,  why  this  preference  openly 
given  to  one  above  another  of  her  statues  ?  How  does  it  happen 
that  so  many  statues  have  their  special  attributes,  and  that  it  is  so 
common  to  ask  something  from  a  saint  m  one  locality  which  would 
not  be  asked  at  all,  or  with  much  less  confidence  in  another  ? 
On  this  point  there  is  no  way  by  which  the  Church  of  Rome  can 
escape  complicity.  Though  she  may  never  have  said,  ex  'pro- 
fesso,  that  certain  images  had  more  virtue  than  others,  no  more 
has  she  ever  had  anything  but  encouragements  for  those  special 
devotions  whereby  this  idea  is  rooted  in  the  popular  belief.  How 
shall  a  madonna,  which  you  treat  as  if  she  were  a  queen,  and 
which  you  suffer  people  to  consider  as  the  palladium  of  a  city  or 
a  country,  not  appear  a  very  different  object  in  their  eyes  from 
that  which  stands  neglected  at  the  neighbouring  street-crossing  ? 
How  hlinll  a  statue  to  which  you  attribute  the  working  of  mira- 
cles Be  no  more  than  another  which  has  not  the  reputation  of 
working  any  ?  It  is  not  to  the  statue,  say  you,  that  you  attrib- 
ute them  ;  it  is  not  even  to  the  saint  whom  it  represents  ;  it  is 
to  God  acting  in  compliance  with  the  prayer  of  the  saint.  Ay, 
such,  no  doubt,  is  the  theory  ;  the  theory  as  modified  and  mod- 
ernized at  least,  for  your  Romanists  of  pure  blood  have  nothing 
to  do  with  it,  far  from  it ;  but  is  the  practice,  once  more  we 
ask,  is  the  practice  often  in  accordance  with  it  ?  Are  there  many 
who  make  this  long  circuit  within  which  you  admit  that  there 
would  be  idolatry?  All  might  make  it,  but  the  objection  would 
still  subsist.  From  the  moment  that  one  image  shall  pass  for 
^  ?\'ou  quod  credatur  inesse  aliqua  in  lis  diviuitas,  vel  virtus. 


Chap.  VI.  lj(i:{.  WORSIIIl*   OF    UEAUTY.  517 

being  more  habitually  tliau  another,  Ave  do  not  say  the  cause, 
for  it  is  maintained  that  this  is  not  believed,  but  merely  tlie  oc- 
casion of  certain  lavours,  is  it  not  clear  that  some  part  at  least 
of  the  conlidence  felt  in  the  original,  will  be  bestowed  on  the 
image  ?  "  The  man  must  be  blind,"  says  Bossuet,^  "  who  does 
not  perceive  the  difierence  between  those  who  put  their  trust  in 
idols  and  those  who  would  make  images  assist  them  in  raisinjj 
their  minds  to  heaven."  But  no  more  did  the  pagans  ever  ad- 
mit that  they  worshipped  statues.  In  Greece,  at  Rome,  you 
w^ould  not  have  found  one  who,  on  being  asked  to  give  a  theo- 
retical exposition  of  his  worship,  would  not  make  the  gods  the 
ultimate  recipients  of  the  honours  paid  to  their  statues.  All 
that  Roman  Catholic  doctors  tell  us  to  this  effect,  is,  word  for 
word,  what  was  said  in  the  third  and  fourth  centuries,  by  the 
apologists  of  expiring  paganism.  The  first  author  of  the  lines 
we   have   just  quoted   was   not   Bossuet  —  it   was   Julian  the 

Apostate.  ._„— ^— 

Shall  we  now  speak  of  what  the  images  ordinarily  are,  and 
of  the  new  perils  with  which  art  has  surrounded  the  worship  of 
them  ?  What  might  we  not  have  to  say  of  those  of  the  Virgin 
in  particular  ?  The  council  certainly  did  not  decide  that  her 
w^orship  ought  to  be  that  of  beauty  ;-  but  Chateaubriand  has 
said  it,-^  and,  as  elsewhere,  lias  in  this  said  only  what  is  actually 
the  fact.  Let  painters  be  allowed  to  represent  her  according  to 
their  own  ideas  ;  but  upon  altars,  if  people  will  have  her  there, 
she  ought  at  least  to  remain  Avhat  she  was  here  below.  Instead 
of  the  simple  Hebrew  type,  why  that  Greek  cast  of  features  and 
those  renewed  traits  of  Venus  ?  Why  that  roseate  tint,  instead 
of  the  copper-colour  paleness  of  the  w^omen  of  Nazareth  ?  Why 
that  virgin  blooming  with  perpetual  youth  and  beauty,  although 
she  had  seen  her  son  live  till  his  thirty-third  year,  and  may  have 
outlived  him,  perhaps,  many  years  ?  When  a  statue  is  erected 
to  a  great  man,  nobody  dreams,  if  he  has  died  advanced  in  life 
of  representing  him  young  ;  at  least  it  would  only  be  in  the  case 
of  wishing  to  recall  some  trait  of  his  youth.  Shall  it  be  said 
that,  in  representing  Maiy  as  at  the  age  of  twenty,  she  is  taken 
at  the  time  when  she  was  the  mother  of  Christ  ?  All  well,  if 
the  only  object  were  to  recall  that  great  event ;  but  from  the 
moment  that  she  is  to  be  prayed  to,  is  it  not  an  anachronism  to 
present  her  to  us  as  she  was  w^hen  nobody  in  the  world  dreamt 

^  Exposition  v. 

^  On  the  contrary,  Procaci  venustate  imagines  noii  pingantur  nee  or- 
nenhcr,  says  the  decree. 

^  "Enchanting  dogma  •whicli  softens  down  tlie  terror  of  a  God,  by 
interposing  beauty  between  our  nothingness  and  the  divine  niajest}-." 


518  HISTORY  OF  THE   COUNCIL  OF  TRENT.  Book  VI. 

as  yet  of  praying  to  her,  and  when  she  herself  suspected  less 
than  any  one  the  post  that  was  to  be  assigned  to  her  ?  If  ever 
she  filled  that  post — which  we  persist  in  denying — it  is  clear  it 
must  have  been  at  a  much  later  period,  after  the  death  of  her 
son,  after  her  own  death.  Why,  then,  we  repeat,  why  pray  to 
her  as  a  young  and  beautifuf  ^voman,  if  it  was  only  ill  her  old 
;      age  or  after  her  death  that  she  began  to  be  in  a  position  to  be 

L prayed  to  ?  In  heaven,  it  is  true,  souls  are  neither  young  nor 
old  ;  but  if  this  be  the  reason  for  your  Virgin  being  always  young, 
l-emember  that  this  privilege  is  common  to  her  with  all  the  souls 
that  have  been  released  from  the  body's  miseries.  You  gene- 
rally represent  the  male  saints  as  very  old  ;^  but  as  for  the  female, 
nothing  too  fresh,  too  charming  for  them.  Provided  you  can  but 
lay  hold  of  jDeople,  it  matters  little  to  you  whether  it  be  by  the 
heart  or  the  eyes,  the  pure  or  the  impure."  Come,  now,  tell  us 
candidly,  would  you  have  been  as  much  devoted  to  the  Yirgin,-had 
you  never  seen  her  represented  but  as  a  woman  of  sixty,. dressed 
as  she  ought  to  be,  in  a  small  town  of  Judea,  the  wife  or  the 
widow  of  a  carpenter  ?  Would  you  in  that  case  have  given  her 
all  those  poetical  surnames  which  you  shower  upon  her  in  her 
litanies  ^  "Wtraldall  tliose  poets^'iio  sing  her  praTses,  and  many 
of  whom,  with  that  exception,  are  no  more  Roman  Catholics 
than  we  are — well  for  them,  indeed,  if  they  he  not  at  heart  per- 
fect infidels — would  they  ever  think  of  singing  her  praises  ?  Ah  I 
Home,  Home,  here  we  see  thee  truly  all  things  to  all  me7i  !  It 
remains  to  be  seen  whether  after  the  manner  of  St.  Paul  or  as 
*'  the  great  'prostitut^'  of  the  prophets. 

To  come  at  last  to  indulgences,  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  fol- 
low the  same  course,  by  attacking  first  the  principle,  then  the 
form  and  the  abuse.  Here  the  abuse  is  inherent  in  the  principle. 
There  is  no  indulgence  that  is  not  necessarily,  and  in  itself,  an 
abuse. 

To  say  that  there  is  nothing  about  it  in  Scripture  would  be  as 
if  we  should  try  to  prove  that  it  was  day  at  noon,  and  night  at 
midnight.     This  the  Church  of  Rome  knows  as  well  as  we.^ 

^  Except  Saiut  John.  Althougli  he  survived  all  the  other  Apostles, 
a  "whimsical  usage  has  condemned  liim  to  remain  under  the  figure  of  a 
youth. 

^  Liguori,  Sanchez,  the  Compendiwn  and  many  other  books,  'woxdd 
supply  us  with  revelations,  were  they  required,  of  what  is  concealed 
under  the  worship  of  the  saints. 

^  "Would  the  reader  know  what  Father  Biner  has  ventured  to  say  ? 
The  salutary  dogma  of  indulgences,  of  purgatory,  of  the  worship  and 
the  invocation  of  saints,  images,  and  relics,  were  discussed  by  folloiclity 
the  Word  of  God  to  the  letter.  Assuredly  few  more  impudent  lines  have 
been  written  from  the  beginning  of  the  world. 


Chap.  VI.  15(33.     INDULGENCES— HISTORICAL   REVIEW.  519 

Or  rather,  yes ;  there  is  something  about  it  in  Scripture,  and 
a  great  deal  too.  From  beginning  to  end  the  New  Testament 
is  just  a  long  indulgence,  sealed  at  every  page  with  the  blood 
of  Jesus  Christ ;  but  that  indulgence  is  unique  and  it  is  perfect ; 
it  belongs  by  faith  to  whosoever  desires  and  asks  for  it,  and,  for 
an  evangelical  Christian,  there  is  no  stranger  enigma  than  an  in- 
dulgence of  two  da}^s,  of  three  days,  of  a  hundred  days,  as  says 
the  Roman  Church. 

Indulgences,  in  their  origin,  were  merely  an  accommodation  of 
the  ancient  discipline  to  the  less  severe  morals  of  the  times  that 
followed.  The  penances  imposed  by  the  Church  were,  in  primi- 
tives times,  measured  by  days,  months,  sometimes  years.  Hence 
the  custom  of  granting  to  the  faithful,  on  some  occasions,  means 
of  abridging  their  duration.  A  three  days'  indulgence,  for  ex- 
ample, signified  that  all  the  faithful,  subject  at  the  time  to  certain 
penances,  might,  on  fulfilling  certain  fixed  conditions,  prayers, 
alms,  &c.,  abridge  them  by  three  days. 

This  arrangement  was  too  much  in  accordance,  on  the  one 
hand,  with  the  public  relaxation  of  morals,  and  on  the  other,  with 
the  encroaching  propensities  of  the  Church,  not  to  be  carried  ere 
long  some  steps  farther.  From  the  idea  of  a  mere  mitigation  of 
temporal  pains  inflicted  by  the  Church,  it  gradually  passed  into 
that  of  the  abbreviation  of  men's  sufferings  in  the  life  to  come. 
This  doctrine,  and  that  of  purgatory,  after  having  mutually  ac- 
credited each  other,  formed  at  last  only  one  and  the  same  sys- 
tem :  a  three  days'  indulgence  then  signified  and  have  continued 
to  signify,  in  the  language  of  the  Church,  three  days  retrenched 
from  those  appointed  to  be  spent  in  purgatory.  As  for  the  scan- 
dalous excesses  which  afterwards  made  the  sale  of  induljrences 
so  notorious,  it  would  be  superfluous  to  speak  here  in  detail.  It 
forms  one  of  those  points  on  which  the  Romanist  historians  re- 
sign themselves  best  to  being  agreed  with  us. 

The  council  abolished  what  had  been  most  flagrant  in  the 
human  or,  if  you  will,  commercial  abuse  of  indulgences  ;  they 
continue  to  be  paid  for,  but  at  least  they  are  not  made  a  market 
of  The  form,  accordingly,  is  a  little  better ;  the  substance  has 
not  changed  and  could  not  change  ;  it  has,  on  the  contrary,  re- 
ceived a  strikingly  significant  sanction.  At  Trent  the  doctrine 
of  indulgences  took  its  place  definitively  among  the  Roman 
dogmas.^ 

Yet  the  council  did  not  condescend  to  any  explanation  of  the 
nature  and  the  object  of  indulgences.     AYe  have  seen,  at  the 

'  See  how  ingeniously  all  this  is  arranged  and  attenuated  by  Bossuet, 
{Exposition  viii.)  "  Such,"  says  he  in  concluding,  "  is  the  holy  and  in- 
nocent doctrine  of  the  Church." 


520  HISTORY   OF   THE   COUNCIL   OF  TRENT.  Book  VL 

commencement  of  this  history,  on  the  occasion  of  the  attempts 
made  by  Adrian  YI.  to  give  a  satisfactory  theory  on  the  subject, 
that  it  is  quite  as  difficult  to  explain  the  matter  to  Roman 
Catholics  as  to  prove  it  to  Protestants.  On  the  one  hand,  we 
said,  if  the  dispositions  of  the  heart  go  for  nothing  in  the  effect 
which  the  indulgence  is  to  produce,  paradise  is  put  up  to  the 
highest  bidder ;  if  they  do  go  for  something,  they  necessarily  go 
for  a  great  deal,  and  then  it  becomes  impossible  to  say  precisely 
what  is  given  to  you  when  you  obtain  an  indulgence.  The  de- 
cree refers  us  to  what  the  Church  teaches.  Where  are  we  to 
find  that  ?  Surely  it  was  for  the  council  to  say.  Usage  has 
led,  although  the  decree  says  nothing  about  it,  to  indulgences 
being  considered  as  applicable  to  the  dead  ;  one  may  gain  them 
for  the  dead  as  well  as  for  himself  Ever  the  same  scandalous 
partiality  of  which  we  have  spoken  already  in  treating  of  the  mass. 
If  you  have  left  relations  and  friends  who  are  concerned  about 
your  being  delivered  from  purgatory,  delivered  you  will  be ;  if 
you  happen  to  have  none,  then  though  you  might  have  been  all 
but  a  saint,  you  must  stay  out  your  time. 

Next,  let  us  see.  Either  the  pope  has  the  power  of  bringing 
souls  out  of  purgatory,  or  he  has  not.  If  he  has  not,  the  question 
is  decided.  If  he  has,^  what  cruelty  then  for  him  to  leave  there 
whole  millions  of  souls  whom  he  might  by  a  word  bring  out  of 
it  I  Without  going  so  far,  why  this  strange  inequality  in  the 
distribution  of  a  treasure  which  is  deemed  inexhaustible  ?  Why 
will  a  'pater  and  an  ave  in  my  parish  church  avail  for  only  five 
or  six  days'  indulgence,  when  they  avail  for  forty  days  in  another 
church,  before  another  Madonna  or  another  cross  ?  Why  is  the 
performance  of  the  same  works  paid,  in  such  or  such  a  congre- 
gation, with  a  plenary  indulgence,  and,  in  this  or  that  other, 
with  a  mere  indulgence  for  a  time  ?  Why — ^but  we  should  never 
end  with  the  contradictions  with  which  this  matter  is  beset.  Yet 
let  us  give  one,  just  one  more.  If  plenary  indulgence  be  not 
merely  a  lure,  how  comes  it  that  masses  continue  to  be  said  for 
the  souls  of  those  who  received  it  when  dying  ?  AVhy  that  sol- 
emn dc  profundis  repeated  at  Rome  during  the  whole  reign  of 
a  pope,  on  the  anniversary  of  the  death  of  his  predecessor  ?  This 
is  what  Luther  said  in  his  theses,  and  the  objection  is  not  the  less 
embarrassing  for  being  old.  The  only  means  of  getting  out  of 
the  difficulty  would  be  to  accept  the  consequences  of  the  system. 
You  have  only  to  regard  as  well  and  duly  entered  into  heaven 
all  who  left  this  world  with  that  infallible  passport,  and  to  refuse, 
therefore,  to  say  a  mass  for  them.     And  why  is  this  not  done  ? 

*  Let  us  not  forget  that  it  was  Alexander  VI.  who  first  officially  ar- 
rogated to  himself  this  power. 


Chap.  VI.  1503.  CHEAPNESS    OF    1NDI'L(JENCES.  &'il 

We  have  no  need  lo  explain.  Between  a  mere  act  of  inconsist- 
ency added  to  so  many  otliers,  and  the  dryin*^  up  of  the  very  he.st 
source  of  her  revenues,  could  Home  ever  hesitate  ? 

But  if  there  be  ground  to  ask,  on  the  one  hand,  why  the  pope 
and  the  bishops  have  not,  at  least,  the  charity  to  grant  every- 
where, and  to  all,  as  many  indulgences  as  they  have  a  right  to 
dispense — no  less  reason  have  we  to  be  astonished  at  the  low 
price  they  put  upon  them,  and  the  incredible  facilities  oflered  to 
such  as  want  to  acquire  them.  See,  for  example,  the  statutes 
of  the  brotherhood,  (co/?frcric,)  well  known  under  the  name  of 
the  9nost  lioly  and  immaculate  heart  of  Mary.  By  a  brief  of 
1838,  plenary  indulgence  is  accorded  to  those  who  shall  worthily 
confess  on  the  day  of  their  reception  into  the  brotherhood  ;  which 
is  as  much  as  saying  to  people,  "  Come  in  among  us,  and  all 
your  previous  sins  will  be  wiped  out."  Plenary  indulgence, 
moreover,  to  such  as  shall  confess  themselves,  and  comnmnicate 
at  certain  epochs  of  the  year,  and  these  are  ten  in  number. 
Farther,  indulgence  of  five  hundred  days  to  whosoever  shall  de- 
voutly be  present  at  the  mass  of  Saturday,  and  shall  pray  lor  the 
conversion  of  sinners.^  Though  w^e  should  believe  in  indulgences, 
it  strikes  us  that  we  could  not  but  feel  some  scruples  at  seeing 
them  lavished  away  in  this  manner.  For  a  mass  that  shall  have 
cost  you  half  an  hour,  to  be  exempted  from  purgatory  for  near  a 
year  and  a  half  I  For  one  confession,  to  be  exempted  from  it  for 
altogether,  although  you  may  have  deserved  a  thousand  years 
of  it  I  If  not  stopt  by  shame,  these  bold  traffickers  in  salvation 
ouo-ht,  at  least,  one  Avould  think,  to  dread  lest  their  wares  should 
sufier  depreciation  in  consequence  of  being  given  away  for  so 
little.  True,  they  do  not  cost  them  anything,  and  there  is  no  limit 
to  the  purchases.  Nobody  well  knowing  to  how  many  years  of 
purgatory  he  may  be  condemned,  can  reasonably  stop  in  addmg 
to  the  amount  of  indulgences  with  which  he  is  to  appear  at  the 
bar  of  judgment.  By  placing  himself  on  the  most  favourable 
conditions,  and  taking  care  to  let  no  occasion  be  lost,  a  man  of 
sixty  might  without  difficulty  have  amassed  them  for  above  a 
million  of  years,  over  and  above  the  plenary  ones,  each  one  of 
which  ought  to  suffice,  and  with  which  one  does  not  well  see 
what  the  rest  can  signify.  In  St.  Dominick's  time  an  indulgence 
of  one  hundred  years  cost  15,000  disciplinary  lashes,  and  Domi- 
nick  once  gave  himself  150,000  of  these  in  the  course  of  a  single 

^  Tlie  intention  is  laudable ;  but  -uhat  is  the  prayer  -which  the  asso- 
ciated sluill  have,  besides,  to  repeat  daily /or  the  convention  of  sinners? 
The  Ave  Maria.  Is  it  not  to  belie  botli  letter  and  spirit  to  invite  people 
to  repeat  certain  ^vords  with  an  eye  to  an  end  which  those  words  do  not 
even  mention? 


522  HISTORY   OF   THE    COUNCIL   OF   TRENT.  Book  VI. 

Leut.^  The  road  to  heaven,  it  will  be  seen,  has  been  marvel- 
lously widened  since  that  time.  Lainez  said,  the  object  of  church 
discipline  is  to  facilitate  man's  fulfilling  of  God's  law. 

It  is  commonly  taught,  in  fine,  that  the  indulgence  has  for 
its  basis  the  merits  of  Jesus  Christ  and  of  the  saints,  applied  by 
the  Church  to  persons  whose  own  merits  would  not  suffice  for 
their  salvation. 

Now,  as  for  those  of  Jesus  Christ,  we  have  already  observed 
that  the  Church  has  nothinoj  to  do  with  administerino-  them  in 
fixed  doses,  since  every  one  may,  by  faith,  find  there  fully  his 
justification  and  his  salvation.  The  Church  herself  would  not 
dare  to  proclaim  them  insufficient. 

As  for  those  of  the  saints,  the  custom  of  applying  them  to 
others  is  not  only  an  abuse,  but  it  amounts  to  the  subversion  of 
the  Christian  economy. 

There  is  not,  in  fact,  in  the  whole  Bible,  any  truth  more 
clearly  or  more  frequently  taught  than  that  of  man's  inability  to 
win  heaven.  Common  sense,  besides,  sufficiently  teaches  it.  A 
workman,  however  earnestly  he  may  set  himself  to  his  task, 
could  never  earn  in  one  day  the  right  to  take  rest  for  thirty 
years.  Between  eternity  and  the  sixty  or  eighty  years  of  this  life, 
the  disproportion  is  a  hundred  times,  a  thousand  times  greater. 
Fill  up  these  sixty  or  eighty  years  with  as  many  virtues  as  you 
will,  not  the  less  evident  is  it,  that  they  never  could  make  up 
the  purchase-money  of  an  eternal  and  infinite  happiness.  As- 
suming this,  in  vain  for  you  to  have  had  a  little  more  of  the  vir- 
tues, a  little  more  zeal  than  another :  liow  could  you  contrive  to 
let  him  have  the  benefit  of  them  ?  You  have  not  paid  for  the 
thousandth  part  of  your  own  acquisition — what  could  another 
borrow  from  you  that  is  not  owing  to  your  creditor,  as  payment 
to  account  of  the  whole  sum  due  ?  Two  men  have  each  an  enor- 
mous sum  to  pay :  one  produces  fifty  crowns,  the  other  five-and- 
twenty,  and  the  debts  of  both  are  discharged.  Would  you  say, 
therefore,  that  the  first  has  paid  more  than  was  necessary,  and 
that  his  overplus  of  five-and-twenty  crowns  will  cover  the  debt 
of  a  third  debtor  ?  Although  we  should  teach,  in  opposition  to 
Scripture,  that  salvation  is  to  be  purchased  by  works,  still  it 
would  have  to  be  admitted  that  the  very  greatest  of  saints  has 
never  paid  more  than  an  imperceptible  proportion  of  the  price 
of  it.  And  if  one  may  say,  strictly  speaking,  that  God  might 
have  saved  him  for  less,  this  nowise  proves  that  he  has  done  too 
much,  paid  too  much,  and  that  the  surplusage  of  his  efforts  may 
be  passed  to  another.  Do  Ave  find  this  to  be  said  by  those  saints, 
those  martyrs,  in  the  Apocalypse,  who  are  represented  as  pray- 
'  Hiirter,  Institutions  de  VEglise,  vii. 


Chap.  VI.  1503.  SUPEREROGATION.  •'j^" 

iiig  Ibr  llie  Cliurch  before  the  throne  of  God  ?  What  liuniiHty, 
on  the  contrary,  in  their  subhmest  songs  of  triumph.  What  fer- 
vour in  their  acknowledgments  that  they  have  been  saved  by 
the  blood  of  him  whom  they  call  the  Lamb.  Mow  little  do  they 
seem  to  say  that  their  merits  could  save,  or  help  to  save,  any 
creatures  whatever  I  Yet  such  is  the  doctrine  that  Roman 
Catholics  make  bold  to  preach.  "  What  aflecting  things,"'  says 
Chateaubriand,  "  in  this  doctrine.  My  virtue,  poor  paltry  mor- 
tal as  I  am,  becomes  the  common  property  of  all  Christians  ;  and 
in  like  manner,  as  1  have  been  tainted  with  Adam's  sin,  my 
righteousness  has  been  put  to  the  account  of  others."  It  would 
be  difficult  to  imagine  anything  more  radically  antichristian. 
Let  us  listen  rather  to  Lmocent  IlL,  the  wisest  and  the  most 
evangelical  of  the  popes,  every  time  that  he  does  not  speak  as  a 
pope.  "  JN'obody  is  justified  in  the  sight  of  God,"  said  he,  "  by 
the  merit  of  his  Avorks,  but  by  the  gift  of  grace.  Before  the 
purity  of  the  Creator,  all  the  purity  of  the  creature  is  impurity." 
Did  Luther  say  anything  else  ?  And  having  said  that,  did  he 
not  say  everything  ? 


CHAPTER  VII. 

SESSION   XXV.      ALL   DIFFICULTIES    ENDED,    THE    COUNCIL    BREAKS 

UP    AND    THE    POPE    TRIUMPHS. 

Eeformatory  decree  on  the  subject  of  the  religious  orders — Encroach- 
ments on  the  civil  authority — Decree  of  general  reformation — Wise 
measures — Digression  on  the  acceptance  of  the  council  in  France — The 
dogmatic  decrees  are  thought  little  worthy  of  a  council — The  pope 
dangerously  ill — More  and  more  haste  made — Threatening  difficulties 
— ^These  are  smoothed  down — The  pope's  confirmation  to  be  asked  for 
— All  the  old  decrees  to  be  read  in  public — The  decree  on  the  princes 
to  have  everything  removed  from  it  that  can  shock  them — Twenty- 
fifth  and  last  session — Unlooked-for  article  in  favour  of  the  pope's 
authority — Prorogation  until  next  day — ^The  decree  on  indulgences 
past — Resumption  of  the  session — Fasts,  festivals,  the  Index,  the  Cat- 
echism, questions  of  precedency,  <fec. — Reading  of  the  old  decrees — 
One  further  difficulty  eluded — ^Final  voting — The  pope's  confirmation 
asked  for — Resistances — View  taken  of  the  confirmation  b}'  those  even 
who  advise  it — It  is  given — The  pope  reserves  to  himself  the  interpre- 
tation of  the  decrees — Rome  can  as  little  trust  the  decrees  of  Trent 
as  she  can  trust  the  Bible — Conclusion. 

And  now  let  us  return,  no  more  to  digress  from  them,  to  the 
last  deliberations  of  the  council. 

Two  decrees  of  reformation  accompanied  the  dogmatical  de- 
crees that  we  have  been  analyzing. 

In  the  first,  relative  to  the  religious  orders,  we  perceive  in 
many  an  article  a  collision  with  the  civil  power.  In  the  fifth, 
for  example,  magistrates  and  princes  are  enjoined,  under  pain  of 
excommunication,  to  aid  bishops  in  confining  within  the  cloister, 
nuns  who  should  attempt  to  be  free.  Now,  governments  the 
most  disposed,  by  being  Roman  Catholic,  to  act  in  this  spirit, 
have  never  admitted  that  the  Church  had  the  right  to  require  it 
at  their  hands. 

The  council  fixed  sixteen  years  as  the  minimum  age  required 
for  the  validity  of  vows.  This  was  a  compromise  between  the 
custom  that  prevailed  of  pronouncing  them  much  earlier,  and  the 
term  of  eighteen,  twenty,  and  even  thirty  years,  generally  asked 
by  the  princes ;  but  this  regulation,  so  inadequate  in  itself,  has 
never  been  seriously  observed.  Girls  destined  to  the  cloister, 
continued  to  enter  as  children,  and  their  liberty  was,  in  point  of 
fact,  engaged  long  before  they  took  the  vows.  Another  enjoined, 
it  is  true,  that  before  admitting  them  to  the  solemn  profession, 


Chap.  VII.  1563.      DECREE   OF   GENERAL   REFOR.MATION.  525 

the  bishop  sliould  ascertain  that  they  came  to  it  with  their  full 
consent ;  but  what  was  there  to  fear  fioin  those  wills  so  fashioned 
and  compressed?  The  council  had  no  need  to  excommunicate 
whosoever  should  force  a  girl  to  embrace  the  religious  life  ;  the 
field  remahied,  and  will  ever  remain,  open  to  indirect  compulsion, 
to  skilful  circumventions.  It  was  said,  in  fine,  that  the  renunci- 
ations and  donations  of  the  novices  in  favour  of  their  convents, 
should  not  be  valid  till  after  their  vows.  A  very  wise  regula- 
tion, but  no  more  had  that  any  eflect,  but  to  redouble  the  eager- 
ness of  the  monasteries  to  retain  those  whose  patrimony  they 
coveted.  In  a  state  of  things  which  was  faulty  at  the  base,  all 
corrections  in  detail  do  as  much  harm  as  good,  and  only  serve,  m 
short,  to  legalize  abuses.  Several  prelates  made  some  very  j  ndi- 
cious  remarks  on  this  subject,  but  the  council  was  too  much 
pressed  for  time  to  pause  to  consider  them. 

Still  more  did  the  decree  of  general  reformation  give  signs  of 
the  precipitation  with  which  it  had  been  prepared.  Of  the 
twenty  articles  of  Avhich  it  was  composed,  few  were  not  either 
too  vague  to  have  serious  results,  or  too  much  mixed  up  with  civil 
matters  not  to  raise  invincible  opposition  on  the  part  of  the  princes. 

Among  the  articles  which  were  too  vague,  but  to  which  it 
would  hardly  have  been  possible  to  give  more  precision,  without 
making  a  profound  breach  on  the  constitution  of  the  Church, 
we  would  adduce  that  which  forbids  bishops  to  enrich  their  re- 
lations and  friends  with  church  property,  recommending  to  them 
at  the  same  time,  the  greatest  simplicity  in  their  dress,  furniture, 
table,  and  general  habits  ;  that  in  which  all  hereditary,  or  ap- 
pearance of  hereditary  succession  to  benefices,  is  proscribed  ;  that, 
in  fine,  which  prescribes  that  dispensations  should  be  granted, 
only  after  mature  consideration  and  knowledge  of  the  case  ;  and, 
moreover,  without  any  retribution.  Many  a  time  does  this  last 
clause  occur,  yet  we  cannot  but  repeat  that  it  has  never  been 
observed,  and  at  Rome  less  than  anywhere  else. 

As  for  the  articles  in  which  the  council  encroached  on  the 
civil  authority,  there  were  some  of  all  sorts. 

In  the  third,  side  by  side  with  some  wise  advices  on  the  danger 
and  impropriety  of  lavishing  excommunications,  the  bishop  is  al- 
lowed to  retain  the  power  of  excommunicating,  in  certain  cases, 
for  civil  and  criminal  affairs. 

In  the  eighth,  he  is  authorized  to  change,  when  it  shall  appear 
necessary  to  him,  the  destination  of  hospital  property. 

In  the  ninth,  he  is  made  sole  judge  of  the  legitimacy  of  pa- 
tronages, that  is  to  say,  of  the  virtues  on  the  ground  of  which 
the  feudal  lords  should  as  patrons  appoint  to  certain  cures  and 
benefices. 


526  HISTORY    OF   THE    COUNCIL   OF    TRENT.  Book  VI. 

In  the  tenth,  the  pope's  legates  and  nuncios  are  assumed  to 
have  in  all  countries  a  jurisdiction  independent  of  that  of  the 
sovereigns  and  bishops. 

In  the  nineteenth,  in  fine,  duelling  is  proscribed,^  but  to  can- 
onical penalties  is  added  that  of  the  confiscation  of  goods,  a 
penalty  purely  civil,  and  totally  beyond  the  competence  of  the 
assembly. 

All  these  articles  are  of  the  number  of  those  which  prevented 
the  council,  after  its  close,  from  being  accepted  without  restric- 
tion in  any  state  in  Europe. ^  In  France,  as  we  have  said 
already,  it  has  never  been  oihcially  received,  either  with  or 
without  restrictions,  notwithstanding  the  reiterated  solicitations 
of  the  bishops,  addressed  to  Charles  IX.,  Henry  III.,  Henry  IV., 
and  Lewis  XIII.  Those  of  our  day  insist  that  the  soncitations 
of  their  predecessors  were  equivalent  to  the  regular  reception  of 
the  council  of  the  whole  body  of  the  French  clergy.  They  rea- 
sonably may  do  so  ;  but  those  very  solicitations,  and  still  more 
the  terms  in  which  they  are  conceived,  prove  at  the  same  time, 
with  the  clearest  evidence,  that  the  clergy  who  made  them  did 
not  consider  the  council  as  received  in  France,  inasmuch  as  it 
had  not  been  received  by  the  French  government.  "  The  Coun- 
cil of  Trent  has  been  received  by  all  kings,  and  there  remains 
only  this  kingdom  that  ...  In  such  sort  that  for  your  kingdom 
there  remains  a  mark  and  reproach  put  upon  it  by  other  king- 
doms for  the  crime  of  schism. "-^  "  Other  kingdoms  have  received 
it,  and  this  kingdom  which,  above  all  others,  has  the  title  of  Most 
Christian,  has  yet  to  receive  it.""*  "  The  whole  earth  has  re- 
ceived this  council.  Shall  we  make  ourselves  the  enemies  of 
Judah  and  Benjamin?  Shall  we,  like  the  infidels,  hinder  the 
rebuilding  of  the  temple  ?"^  The  States-general,  in  1614,  were 
addressed  in  the  same  language.     Fifty  years  after  the  council, 

'  This  detestable  custom,  says  the  decree,  introduced  by  the  devil, 
its  author.  Detcstahilis  usus,  fabricante  diabolo  introductus.  As  detest- 
able and  diabolical  as  you  please;  but  it  is  curious  to  see- the  council 
attribute  to  the  devil  a  custom,  Avhich  every  one  knows  was  introduced, 
or  certainly  at  least  adopted,  in  the  Middle  Age,  by  the  Church  herself. 
"What  is  duelling  but  a  degenerate  continuance  of  the  famous  Judgment 
of  God? 

*  See  Histoire  de  la  reception  du  Concile  de  Trente,  by  the  Abbe  Mignot, 
1756. 

^  The  Archbishop  of  Bourges  to  Henr}'-  III.,  in  the  name  of  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly  of  the  Clergy,  1582. 

*  The  Bisliop  of  Mons  to  Henry  IV.,  in  the  name  of  the  Assembl}-  of 
1596. 

*  The  Archbishop  of  Yienne,  in  the  name  of  the  Assembly  of  1605. — 
See  the  work  last  cited,  and  the  Notes  sur  le  Concile  de  Trent,  by  Rapi- 
cod,  1706. 


Chat.  VII.  1503.     THE  COUNCIL  NOT  ACCEPTED  IN  FRANCE.  '>27 

therefore,  the  king  not  having  received  it,  the  bishops  did  not 
consider  it  as  received.  This  question,  lor  the  rest,  is  a  much 
more  serious  one  among  Roman  Cathohcs,  than  when  viewed  in 
relation  to  the  attacks  made  against  them.  We  would  here 
merely  point  to  it  in  passing,  and  remark  how  much  the  French 
clergy,  on  this,  as  on  so  many  other  things,  have  changed  their 
opinions  since  the  sixteenth  century. 

All  these  decrees,  witli  the  exception  of  that  on  indulgences, 
which  they  did  not  well  know  how  to  arrange,  and  which  they 
spoke  of  omitting,  were  drawn  up  and  voted  with  extraordinary 
rapidity.  Hardly  was  there  here  and  there  a  detail,  a  word  upon 
which  there  was  not  immediate  unanimity  ;  but  this  very  unani- 
mity called  forth,  on  the  part  of  some  prelates,  an  objection  which 
was  destined  not  to  disappear  with  the  opposition  given  by  those 
who  then  formally  stated  it.  These  prelates  openly  said  that 
these  last  doctrinal  articles  appeared  to  them  superficial,  insuffi- 
cient, little  worthy  of  a  council.  One  has  seen,  and  we  could 
have  demonstrated  the  thing  still  more  clearly,  how  much  ground 
there  was  for  this  reproach.  All  difficulties  are  evaded.  Of  all 
the  questions  which  a  Roman  Catholic  might  ask  himself  on 
these  points,  all  so  interesting  to  him,  and  so  closely  connected 
with  what  is  most  usual  in  his  faith  and  in  his  worship,  there  is 
hardly  one  of  w^hich  he  finds  the  solution  there.  Hardly  will  he 
find  what  is  most  elementary  in  a  child's  catechism.  After  so 
many  anathemas  ondisciplinaiy,  and  even  on  civil  matters,  there 
is  none  on  the  worship  of  saints,  none  on  that  of  images,  none  on 
inirgatory. 

This  arose  from  the  desire  to  come  to  a  close  having  daily 
gained  ground,  so  as  to  ferment  "  marvellously"  in  all  men's 
hearts.^  The  emperor's  ambassadors,  in  particular,  were  con- 
stantly pressing  the  legates.  If  matters  were  not  hastened,  they 
said,  their  master  would  recall  them  ;  it  w^as  not  until  after  the 
close  that  it  w^as  known  that  the  emperor  had  not  really  had  any 
such  intention.  The  Portuguese  ambassador  held  nearly  the 
same  language.  Those  of  Venice  and  other  states  joined  their 
urgent  calls,  and  the  Count  di  Luna,  even  while  expressing  his 
desire  to  wait  for  a  letter  from  the  king  of  Spain,  did  not  seem 
indisposed  to  their  proceeding  notwithstanding.  The  legates 
wrote  in  consequence,  that  "  harvest  time  had  arrived/'  when  of 
a  sudden,  on  the  27th  of  I^ovember,  in  the  evening,  the  count 
came  to  them,  and  expressed  quite  diilerent  sentiments.  As  for 
him,  he  said,  he  had  more  reasons  than  any  one  to  return  to  his 
country  at  the  soonest  possible,  death  having  there  decimated  his 
'  Pallavicini,  1.  xxiv.     All  the  details  that  follow  are  from  him. 


528  HISTORY  OF  THE  COUNCIL  OF   TRENT.  Book  VI. 

family,  and  thrown  his  affairs  into  disorder  ;  but  the  interest  of 
the  council  and  of  the  Church  had  more  weight  with  him  than 
any  other  consideration.  Would  it  not  be  very  sad  that  a  work 
pursued  during  eighteen  years  should  not  have  an  honourable 
end  ?  If  it  were  not  really  possible  to  do  all  that  the  wants  of 
Christendom  might  have  exacted,  ought  not  the  council  at  least 
to  proceed  with  dignity  to  the  little  that  it  was  still  about  to  do  ? 
"  Wherefore  expose  themselves,  in  their  eagerness  to  pluck  the 
apple  some  days  too  soon,  to  the  risk  of  having  only  harsh  fruit, 
that  never  can  have  the  sweet  and  healthy  fragrance  that  perfect 
ripeness  alone  can  give  ?" 

In  spite  of  these  representations  the  legates  persisted ;  they 
even  openly  announced  their  intention  not  to  wait  for  the  day 
that  had  been  fixed  (9th  December)  for  the  celebration  of  the 
last  session.  On  the  29th  of  November  the  count  called  around 
him  all  the  prelates  of  his  nation,  and,  to  his  great  surprise,  found 
only  two  or  three  who  were  resolved  to  join  him  in  opposing  the 
council's  being  brought  to  a  close.  On  the  day  following  he  held 
another  meeting,  but  with  no  better  success.  Hardly  had  they 
left  the  house  when  a  courier  arrived  from  Rome  ;  the  pope  had 
had  a  relapse  ;  he  may  by  that  time  have  died.  In  vain  did  the 
count  protest  anew  that  his  master  did  not  dream  of  troubling 
the  next  election,  by  holding  that  it  belonged  to  the  council :  the 
majority  could  never  feel  at  their  ease  till  the  assembly  should  be 
dissolved. 

Everything  concurred  towards  the  hastening  of  the  close  ;  but 
it  might  bring  back  all  the  old  difficulties  attending  the  opening. 
On  the  2d  of  December,  although  the  legates  had  decided  to 
hold  the  session  on  the  morrow,  there  was  a  host  of  things  on 
which  the  members  had  not  come  to  any  common  understand- 
ing. 

First  of  all,  the  pope  was  not  presumed  to  have  any  cogniz- 
ance of  the  decrees  that  were  to  be  made,  or  of  those  of  the  other 
sessions.  Under  what  form  was  the  official  communication  to 
be  made  ?  Was  the-  council  to  make  a  formal  request  for  the 
pope's  approbation  ?  That  would  be  to  own  the  council's  inferi- 
ority ;  to  which  the  Spaniards  and  the  French  would  never  con- 
sent. Were  they  to  send  the  decrees  to  him  as  definitively  pass- 
ed ?  That  would  be  to  teach  the  superiority  of  the  council. 
The  Roman  party  had  at  first  the  idea  of  taking  the  course  of 
separating  without  having  regulated  that  point.  The  decrees 
were  to  be  sent  to  Rome  ;  the  confirmation  was  to  be  given 
without  any  farther  explanation.  But  all  other  difficulties 
were  so  evidently  in  the  course  of  being  smoothed  away  that  it 
was  thought  one  might  venture  to  remove  this  too.     The  confer- 


CjiAP.  VII    1503.  SMOOTHING    OF    DIFFICULTIES.  C29 

ences  were  calm  and  l)ri('f.  The  most  roLelliou.s  were  piveii  to 
understand  tliat  tlie  \m\rdl  conllrmation  did  not  necessarily  imply 
the  superiority  of  the  po})c  ;  that  it  was  merely  the  act  by  which, 
as  head  ol"  the  executive  power  in  the  Church,  he  made  himself 
responsible  for  the  execution  of  her  decrees.  As  they  wanted 
nothing  better  than  to  be  persuaded,  they  were  persuaded,  and 
in  the  end  there  was  but  one  prelate,  the  Archbishop  of  Gren- 
ada, who  persisted  in  not  asking  for  the  pope's  confirmation. 

At  the  same  time  there  vanished,  as  if  by  enchantment,  the 
difficulty  which  had  very  nearly  prevented  the  council  iVom  be- 
ing resumed.  It  will  be  remembered  with  what  warmth  the 
French  and  the  Germans  had  repelled  the  idea  that  the  assembly 
of  1562  was  the  sequel  of  those  of  1545  and  1551.  ^Ye  have 
seen  that  a  decision  on  this  point  had  been  avoided,  and  the 
event  proved  how  much  wisdom  there  had  been  in  leaving  it  to 
be  decided  by  time  and  the  force  of  circumstances.  Time  had 
brought  everybody  to  desire  a  speedy  conclusion  ;  now  that  pre- 
supposes one  whole,  which  the  decrees  of  those  last  two  years 
evidently  were  not.  To  vote  for  the  close  was  therefore  of  ne- 
cessity to  vote  the  acceptance  of  all  the  anterior  decrees.  It  was 
proposed,  accordingly,  in  that  sitting  of  the  2d  of  December,  that 
there  should  be  read  at  the  last  session  all  that  had  been  publish- 
ed under  Paul  III.,  and  under  Julius  III.,  and  not  a  voice  wa.s 
raised  against  this  solemn  declaration  of  the  unity  of  the  three 
councils. 

In  fine,  by  way  of  acknowledgment  for  so  much  ready  com- 
pliance, the  Roman  party  consented  to  remove  from  the  decree 
on  the  princes,  all  the  special  proscriptions,  as  well  as  all  tlie 
anathemas  with  which  it  had  been  proposed  that  they  should  bo 
supported.  The  council  was  only  to  renew,  in  general  terms,  the 
ancient  canons  relative  to  the  Church's  immunities,  and  the  prin- 
ces were  to  be  respectfully  craved  to  observe  them,  and  to  cause 
them  to  be  observed. 

On  Friday,  3d  December,  1563,  (Session  XXV.,)  after  the  or- 
dinary ceremonies  and  a  triumphal  sermon  preached  by  Jerome 
llaggazoni,  a  Venetian,  and  Bishop  of  Nazianzum,  the  Council  pro- 
ceeded to  the  reading  of  the  decrees  which  had  not  been  definitive- 
ly agreed  upon  until  pretty  far  on  in  the  night.  The  legates  took 
the  freedom  to  add  an  article,  no  mention  of  which  had  been  made 
in  the  preparatory  meetings,  and  which,  at  any  other  time,  would 
not  have  passed  without  raising  a  storm.  It  bore,  that  "  what- 
ever expressions  and  whatever  clauses  might  have  been  put  into 
the  decrees,  the  council  meant  that  it  should  not  be,  and  that  it 
could  not  be  interpreted,  in  any  case,  to  the  prejudice  of  the  au- 

Z 


530  HISTORY   OF    THE  COUNCIL    OF    TREiNT.  Book  VI. 

thority  of  the  Holy  See."^  This  was  the  old  salva  semper  more 
positive  and  more  general  than  ever.  The  authority  of  the 
Holy  See  not  having  been  defined,  either  de  jure  or  de  facto, 
the  pope  remained,  as  he  had  ever  been,  sole  judge  of  his  own 
rights,  and  widest  latitude  was  left  to  him,  as  was  abundantly 
seen  from  the  sequel,  in  the  interpretation  and  application  of  the 
decrees.  Although  this  article,  in  fine,  did  not  plainly  contain 
the  doctrine  of  the  pope's  superiority,  it  was  clear  that  ultra- 
montanism  would  have  no  difficulty  in  giving  it  that  meaning. 
The  authority  of  the  Holy  See  is  represented  in  it  as  in  such  sort 
beyond  the  sphere  of  every  kind  of  discussion,  that  no  council 
could  ever  entertain  the  thought  of  circumscribing  it  by  any 
limits. 

As  four  or  five  hours  at  least  were  required  for  reading  the 
old  decrees,  it  had  been  decided  that  the  session  should  last  two 
days. 

Next  day,  then,  very  early,  the  members  held  a  general  con- 
gregation for  deciding  on  the  decree  upon  indulgences.  The 
ultra-Romanists  had  made  fresh  efforts  to  have  it  thrown  aside, 
but  this  was  opposed  by  a  pretty  large  majority.  Singular  des- 
tiny of  the  question  that  had  once  on  a  time  made  so  much  noise, 
and  that  had  turned  men's  minds  most  warmly  towards  reforma- 
tion and  a  council."  It  was  at  the  close  of  eighteen  years,  an 
hour  or  two  before  it  met  for  the  last  time,  that  the  assembly, 
with  great  difficulty,  found  a  few  moments  to  devote  to  what  had, 
in  1517,  evoked  the  first  thunderbolts  that  were  launched  at  the 
head  of  Luther  I 

This  accomplished,  the  session  was  resumed.  The  decree 
just  finished  was  read,  then  a  second  on  fasting,  the  distinction 
of  meats,  and  the  observance  of  festivals. ^  On  those  points  the 
council  confined  itself  to  recommending,  in  a  general  way,  the 
observance  of  the  laws  of  the  Church.  As  it  was  known  that 
the  bishops  were  but  little  agreed  on  the  question,  whether  laws 
of  this  kind  are  of  divine  or  of  ecclesiastical  right,^  and  up  to 

'  Omnia  et  singula,  sub  quibuseunquc  clausulis  et  verbis  .  .  .  ita  de- 
creta  fuisse,  ut  in  his  salva  semper  auctoritas  Sedis  Apostolicoe  et  sit  et 
esse  intelligatur. 

2  "  That  pastors  should  do  their  utmost  to  make  people  obey  these 
commandments,  especially  those  that  concern  the  mortification  of  the 
flesh,  such  as  the  distinction  of  meats,  fasts,"  <fec. — The  Council. 

"Let  no  man  therefore  judge  you  in  meat  or  in  drink.  "Wherefore 
if  3'e  be  dead  Avith  Christ  from  the  rudiments  of  the  world,  why,  as 
though  living  in  the  world,  are  ye  subject  to  (such)  ordinances?" — St. 
Paul. 

^  St.  Paul,  nevertheless,  has  said  (Colossians  ii.)  that  these  laws  are 
the  "  commandments  and  doctrines  of  men ;"  but  St.  Paul  had  no  voice 
in  the  council  if  they  in  the  least  dreaded  any  opposition  on  his  part. 


Chap.  VII.  1563.         READING    OF  THE    OLD   DECREES.  631 

what  }X)int  they  are  either,  it  had  been  so  contrived  that  the 
council  had  not  to  pronounce  cither  way. 

Three  other  articles  followed.  One,  that  the  definitive  com- 
position of  the  Index  and  the  Catechism,'  previously  decreed, 
should  be  remitted  to  the  pope.  A  second,  to  declare  that  ques- 
tions of  precedence,  whatever  solution  might  have  been  given 
to  them  at  Trent,  were  to  be  considered  as  precisely  where  they 
were  before  the  council  had  met.  The  third,  recoinnionding  to 
the  princes  and  bishops  the  prompt  and  rigorous  observance  of 
the  decrees. 

In  fine,  they  proceeded  to  read  those  that  had  been  passed 
under  Paul  III.  and  under  Julius  III.,  but  with  the  studious 
omission  of  anything  that  could  intimate  whether  this  was  meant 
as  a  confirmation  of  them,  or  only  as  a  declaration,  by  recalling 
them,  of  the  identity  of  the  council.  It  was  of  great  consequence 
that  this  point  should  remain  undecided.  To  declare  that  they 
were  thus  confirmed  was  to  give  a  triumph  to  those  who  had 
previously  attacked  them  as  not  being  definitive  decrees  ;  to  de- 
clare that  they  were  recalled,  but  without  confirming  them,  in- 
asmuch as  they  had  all  their  authority  already,  would  have  been 
to  put  many  persons  in  the  dilemma  of  either  having  to  admit 
that  they  had  done  wrong  in  protesting  before  or  of  renewing 
their  protests.  Hence  the  precaution  taken  to  speak  only  of  a 
reading.2  Ever,  down  to  the  last  moment,  compromises,  sub- 
terfuges, questions  eluded,  principles  dissembled  under  forms,  be- 
cause there  was  either  want  of  the  courage  or  want  of  the  will 
to  agitate  what  lay  essentially  at  the  bottom  of  them. 

There  remained  the  final  voting,  that  on  the  petition  to  the 
pope  for  confirmation.  Although  it  might  have  been  hoped,  in 
the  last  preparatory  assembly,  that  there  would  be  but  a  single 
opposing  voice,  great  was  the  anguish  of  anxiety  ;  the  ground 
they  stood  upon  was  felt  to  be  so  radically  false  that  it  was  not 
easy  for  one  to  stumble  without  making  many  others  do  the 
same.  It  was  perceived  that  it  would  require  no  great  eflbrt  for 
people  to  ask  themselves  what  sort  of  infallibility  that  could  be 
that  went  in  search  of  a  confirmation  of  its  decrees  from  another 
infallibility.  We  have  said  already  how  the  matter  stood ;  either 
the  council's  decisions  had  been  hitherto  null,  although  the  as- 
sembly had  all  along  spoken  and  acted  as  if  they  thought  them 
valid,  or  they  had  their  force,  their  full  force  already,  for  there 
are  no  degrees  in  infallibility.  What  in  that  case  would  the 
papal  confirmation  signify  ? 

*  The  Index  appeared  in  March,  1564,  and  the  Catechism  in  Septem- 
ber, 1566. 

-  Vult  sancta  synodiis  lit  ilia  nunc  recitentnr  et  legantur. 


532  HISTORY   OF   THE    COUNCIL  OF    TRENT.  Book  VI. 

These  objections,  which  they  were  fortunate  enough  to  con- 
trive that  no  one  should  bring  forward,  were  about  to  become 
more  sahent  than  ever  by  the  manner  in  which  the  papal  sanc- 
tion was  bestowed. 

Pius  IV.  felt  disposed  to  grant  it  immediately ;  but  however 
inadequate  the  reforms  that  had  been  ordered  might  be,  there 
was  enouffh  in  them  to  frighten  his  court,  and  nothing  had  more 
shocked  it,  in  particular,  than  to  see  the  cardinals  expressly  com- 
prised in  some  of  the  most  severe  decrees.  Accordingly,  long 
before  the  last  session  the  parties  chiefly  interested  had  taken 
their  measures.  "When  the  legates  arrived  at  Rome  with  the 
petition  for  confirmation,  the  pope  was  already  circumvented, 
troubled,  dismayed.  As  for  personal  sacrifices,  he  had  resigned 
himself  to  them  all  the  more  readily,  as  he  remained  after  the 
dissolution  of  the  assembly  sole  master  of  his  own  conduct,  so  as 
either  to  carr}'  the  reforms  into  effect  or  to  say  no  more  about 
them ;  but  he  made  eftbrts  in  vain  to  close  his  ears  to  those  de- 
clamations and  those  lamentations  that  now  came  upon  him 
from  all  quarters.  To  the  vexation  of  making  so  many  discon- 
tented there  were  added  his  own  scruples,  those  at  least  which 
artful  advisers  had  contrived  to  suggest  to  him  with  respect  to 
his  duties  and  his  position  as  pope.  Was  he  free  in  point  of 
conscience  to  abandon  any  portion  whatever  of  what  his  prede- 
cessors had  considered  as  the  rights  of  the  Holy  See  ?  Very  great 
doctors  had  said — No ;  and  as  there  was  not  a  single  abuse,  how- 
ever crying,  that  might  not  have  been  shewn  to  be  connected 
more  or  less  remotely  with  the  papal  prerogatives,  there  was  not 
a  kitchen  scullion  belonging  to  the  pope,  as  De  Lansac  the  am- 
bassador would  say,  that  was  not  ready  to  throw  himself  on  the 
rights  of  Peter,  were  it  even  in  opposing  the  pope  himself  Is 
it  much  otherwise  at  the  present  day  ?  Ask  Pius  IX.  He  is 
better  acquainted  than  any  one  with  that  inextricable  maze  of 
interests,  usages,  abuses,  prerogatives,  real  or  factitious  wants, 
with  which  the  pontifical  throne  has  ever  been  beset.  From  the 
pope  down  to  the  lowest  sacristan,  everybody  at  Rome  feels  as 
if  he  were  in  one  of  those  ancient  houses  which  are  wanting 
neither  in  beauty  without  nor  in  comfort  within,  but  of  which 
not  a  bit  of  wall  can  be  taken  down  and  repaired  without  your 
being  led  to  rebuild  the  whole  from  top  to  bottom. 

These  difficulties  were  removed.     Let  us  see  how. 

First,  we  find  that  the  Cardinal  da  Mula,  in  a  commission  of 
inquiry  on  the  subject,  voted  for  the  confirmation,  but  with  the 
following  remarks  : 

That  people  had  much  reason  to  congratulate  themselves  on 
seeing  they  had  come  to  the  end  of  so  many  fatigues,  disquie- 


l.'HAi'.  Vll.  JoC.J.     .SHALL     rill':    I'ol'E    COMIR.M    'llli:    DECKELS'  '•'■■'■I 

tudcs,  and  expenses  ;  juul  to  avoid  the  risk  of  falling  into  tlicni 
:i<iuin,  only  perliaps  to  extricate  themselves  in  a  iiir  worse  condi- 
tion the  next  time  ; 

.  That  to  refuse  confirmation  might  lead  some  to  dispense  Milh 
it,  and  to  obey  the  council,  as  having  no  need  of  it ;  others  to 
consider  all  the  decrees  as  null ;  and  then  to  have  recourse  to 
national  councils  ; 

That  by  taking  a  middle  course,  as  Avas  recommende<l  by 
many,  that  is  to  say,  by  selecting  the  decrees  on  the  faith  i<Dr 
immediate  approval,  and  reserving  the  rest  to  be  doterrnined 
upon  afterwards,  the  ditliculty  would  not  be  eilectually  removed, 
and  all  sorts  of  dansiers  M'ould  be  amassed  for  the  future ; 

Tliat  if,  according  to  other  -counsels,  they  were  to  be  approved 
in  the  lump,  but  with  certain  modifications  in  detail,  this  wc-uld 
be  to  expose  the  pontifical  authorit}^  to  the  most  delicate  contes- 
tations ; 

That,  accordingly,  there  was  iio  room  to  hesitate  between  s(;me 
disagreeable  things,  the  bearing  of  which  it  would  be  easy  to  at- 
tenuate, and  the  storms  of  all  kinds  which  so  unlooked  for  a  re- 
fusal M-ould  infallibly  draw  down  upon  the  Holy  See. 

Da  Mula  was  followed  by  Hugh  Buoncompagno,  bishop  of 
Bestice,  not  a  cardinal  till  afterwards,  but  already  one  of  the 
pope's  oracles,  who  summed  up  the  state  of  matters  with  even 
more  frankness. 

First,  he  asked  why  the  decrees  of  Trent,  oven  when  con- 
firmed by  the  j)opc,  should  have  more  authority  than  so  many 
others,  of  which  the  pope  has  remained  supreme  arbiter.  The 
validity  of  laws,  according  to  him,  and  not  only  their  practical 
validity,  but  their  meaning,  necessarily  depends  on  the  man  w  ho 
governs.  There  is  nothing  to  prevent  opposing  use  to  la^vs,  the 
necessity  of  the  moment  to  the  general  necessities  contemplated 
in  the  decree.  Will  it  be  said  that  the  adversaries  of  the  Holy 
.See  will  have,  in  this  new  code,  an  arsenal  always  open  ?  But 
nothing  more  easy  than  to  shut  it  against  them.  "When  the 
rule  of  iSt.  Francis,  full  of  ambiguities,  threatened  to  raise  a  war 
among  its  interpreters,  what  did  JN^icIiolas  HI.  do  ?  He  forbade 
■the  interpretation  of  it  by  any  one  but  liimself  or  his  delegates. 
This  might  be  wisely  done  as  re?p(^ts  tlio  decrees  of  Trent. 
Confirm  them  ;  but  ordain  at  the  .-^ame  tune  that  no  one  shall 
have  the  right,  or  ought  even  to  entertain  the  thought  of  inter- 
preting them. 

This  idea  pleased  Pius  IV.  Yet  it  was  a  thing  quite  unheard 
of  even  in  the  annals  of  jiapal  despotism.  To  forbid  writing 
glosses  on  ancient  and  more  or  less  obscure  laws,  is  still  done  ; 
but  to  publish  simultaneously  with  the  code,  a  piohibition  against 


534  HISTORY   OF   THE    COUNCIL    OF   TRENT.  Book  VI. 

studying  its  meaning,  is  the  last  possible  step  that  can  be  taken 
in  the  subjugation  of  the  conscience  and  of  thought. 

That  very  step,  which  we  should  deem  to  be  fabulous,  were 
there  not  the  solemn  bull  there^  to  attest  it,  was  actually  taken. 
'•  In  virtue  of  the  apostolic  authority,  we  prohibit  all,  whether 
ecclesiastics,  of  any  rank  whatsoever,  or  laymen,  whatever  be  the 
authority  with  which  they  are  invested,  the  former  under  pain 
of  interdiction,  the  latter  under  pain  of  excommunication ;  we 
prohibit  all,  in  a  word,  whosoever  they  may  be,  to  make  upon 
these  decrees  of  the  council  any  commentaries,  glosses,  an?iota- 
iio?is,  scholia,  or  iiitoyretations  whatsoever. ^'"^ 

After  this,  reproach  Roman  Catholicism,  forsooth,  for  having 
deprived  you  of  the  right  to  interpret  the  Bible  I  That  which 
it  has  itself  put  in  the  place  of  the  Bible,  its  decrees,  its  council 
by  predilection,  what  it  had  spent  eighteen  years  in  elaborating, 
calculating,  weighing — even  that  it  does  not  yet  believe  itself 
sufficiently  sure  of,  to  admit  of  its  being  abandoned  to  the  con- 
science and  the  reason  of  the  faithful.  It  publishes  this  code, 
but  with  a  prohibition  which,  if  strictly  observed,  would  be 
equivalent  to  an  interdict  against  reading  it ;  for  it  is  clear  that 
you  cannot  open  it  any  more  than  the  Bible,  without  the  risk  of 
interpreting  some  one  or  other  passage  difierently  from  the  pope, 
and  consequently,  being  excommunicated.  Truly  Housseau  was 
an  excellent  Roman  Catholic,  when  he  said,  "  The  man  who 
thinks  is  a  depraved  animal." 

See,  then,  ye  children  and  apologists  of  Rome,  the  yoke 
under  which  you  are  placed.  True,  many  hardly  suspect  it,  in 
those  countries,  at  least,  in  which  the  Roman  Church  hai?  not 
the  government  in  her  hands.  She  leaves  those  in  tranquillity 
who,  without  having  broken  with  her,  would  break  wdth  her 
evidently  on  the  first  attempt  she  might  make  to  enslave  them. 
She  takes  care  not  to  lay  upon  those  v.4io  only  half  belong  to 
her,  anything  in  the  way  of  believing  or  doing  beyond  what  the 
faith  and  devotedness  of  each  will  bear.  As  for  those  whom  she 
believes  to  be  entirely  hers,  who  eulogize  and  who  defend  her, 

1  26th  January,  1,56-1. 

"  ".  .  .  Ullus  commentarius,  glossas,  aunotationcs,  scholia,  uUumve 
omnino  interpretationis  genus  super  ipsius  concilii  decretis  quocunque 
modo  edere."  The  pope  then  evokes  to  himself  all  the  difficulties  that 
may  emerge.  A  permanent  commission,  known  under  the  name  of  the 
Coyigregation  of  ihe  Council,  vras  instituted  to  this  efiect.  It  still  sub- 
Bists ;  ]M.  d' Andrea,  formerly  nuncio  in  Switzerland,  is  a  member  of  it. 
Its  decisions  have  been  several  times  collected  and  published.  Some 
of  them  are  very  curious,  whether  as  an  amplification  of  the  Tridentine 
dogmas,  or  as  an  abatement  of  the  decrees  that  are  unfavourable  to  the 
pope. 


CuAi-.  VII.  lj(ii.     MANV    (ATIIOLILS    IIAVK    NOT    KNTIKi;    lAriH  5H5 

on  them  she  hivishes  all  sorts  of  cncoiiragemcuts,  facilities,  and 
flatteries.  8ay  a  Avord,  write  a  sentence  which  has  the  appear- 
ance of  an  apology,  and  although  that  sentence,  that  word,  should 
bear  only  upon  something  quite  unessential,  such  as  the  beauty 
of  a  cathedral,  or  the  majesty  of  a  high  mass,  or  the  jjoctry  of 
steeple  bells,  forthwith  you  arc  pronounced  a  man  of  fail li,  whose 
numbers,  if  Ave  are  to  believe  certain  books,  arc  daily  on  the  in- 
crease. Alas  I  it  must  be  admitted,  their  numbers  are  increasing ; 
fortunately  avc  can  have  a  near  view  of  them,  and  after  having 
had  such  a  view,  we  are  soon  reassured.  Ask  these  alleged  men 
of  faith  if  they  believe  in  the  authority  of  the  Church  ;  put  the 
case  before  them  of  their  being  called  upon,  not  to  speak,  but  to 
submit  and  to  obey,  and  you  will  find  how  little  they  diflcr  from 
those  who  tell  you  that  they  do  not  believe  in  that  authority. 
Ask  them  what  they  think  of  the  pope's  infallibility  ?  Some 
will,  without  hesitation,  deny  it,  and  you  will  shew  them  that 
it  is  nevertheless  a  dogma,  not  only  at  E-ome  and  among  Jesuit 
professors,  but  with  almost  the  universal  body  of  Roman  Catho- 
lic bishops  of  all  countries  ;  you  will  tell  them  that  if  the  Coun- 
cil of  Trent  did  not  A'-enture  to  teach  it  in  set  terms,  it  formally 
assumed  it  by  submitting  its  decrees  to  Pius  IV. ^  Others  Avill 
maintain  that  they  admit  it ;  and,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Church's 
authority,  you  Avill  only  have  to  enter  into  some  details,  in  order 
to  prove  that  they  do  not  admit  it.  Will  they  try  to  make  a 
distinction  betAveen  infallibility  in  doctrine  and  infallibility  in 
discipline  ?  Still  you  can  prove  to  them  not  only,  as  we  have 
done,2  that  this  distinction  has  never  been  admitted  at  Rome, 
but  that  there  is  a  host  of  decrees  presenting  such  a  medley  of 

^  Xor  let  us  forget  the  form  under  which  the  approbation  vras  granted. 
The  more  the  pains  that  had  been  talcen,  till  then,  to  evade  the  quc-- 
tion  of  the  respective  authority  of  councils  and  of  popes,  Avitli  the  more 
assurance  did  Pius  IV.  decide  it  in  his  own  favour.  "After  mature  de- 
liberation," says  he  in  his  bull,  "having  seen  that  all  the  decrees  are 
Catholic,  useful  and  salutary  to  the  Christian  people,  we  confirm  them, 
ordaining  that  they  shall  be  received  and  observed."  Thus  the  decrees 
that  he  confirms  he  recognises  as  not  oi\\y  useful,' q,\\^  salutary,  but  Ca- 
tholic;  he  has  tried  them,  then,  tried  them  as  sovereign  judge,  in  point 
of  faith  as  well  as  in  point  of  discipline.  He  pronounces,  but  it  is  after 
mature  deliberation.  lie  accords.  We  are  entitled,  therefore,  to  sup- 
pose the  case  of  his  liaving  possibly  refused,  and  to  ask  ourselves  what, 
in  that  event,  would  have  become  of  the  authority  of  the  council.  If 
there  be  no  difficiilty  here  for  those  who  frankly  admit  the  omnipotence 
of  the  pope,  and  liis  superiority  over  councils,  there  is  enough  certainly 
to  perplex  those  who  deny  it.  Everywhere,  and  under  all  forms,  you 
come  Tipon  this  grand  problem  which  would  be  enough  to  subvert  the 
Church  of  Ixome  altogether,  but  for  the  immense  interest  that  all  her 
members  have  iu  letthig  it  sleep. 

'  See  Book  I. 


536  HISTORY    OF   THE   COUNCIL    OF  TRENT.  Book  VI. 

discipline  and  dogma,  that  we  defy  you  to  eflect  any  such  sifting 
of  the  one  class  from  the  other.  And  why  speak  we  of  popes 
and  papal  bulls  I  The  council  itself,  that  infallible  summary  of 
Roman  doctrine,  you  have  a  hundred  means  of  proving  to  those 
people,  is,  at  bottom,  just  as  little  an  object  of  their  belief.  And 
here  you  may  boldly  extend  your  sifting  of  men's  creeds  beyond 
the  circle  of  persons  decidedly  superior  in  point  of  education  and 
talent.  To  all  whom  you  could  induce  to  reason  and  to  account 
a  little  to  themselves  for  vvhat  they  believe,  you  might  shew, 
even  hi  the  council,  things  which  they  do  not  believe,  which 
they  never  will  believe  ;  j'ou  might  thus  wrest  from  them  the 
admission,  direct  or  indirect,  it  matters  not,  that  they  are  not 
Roman  Catholics ;  and  these  professed  believers  might,  m  their 
turn,  reckon  with  their  fingers,  how  many  of  the  condemnations 
and  anathemas,  denounced  by  these  same  decrees  of  Trent,  and 
under  which  they  have  long  believed  you  to  be  overwhelmed, 
they  themselves  have  hitherto  been,  still  are,  and  all  their  lives 
must  be  obnoxious  to. 

Roman  Catholicism,  Ave  are  told,  is  one  and  invariable.  This 
we  have  denied.  The  quarrels  that  agitated  the  council,  the 
intrigues  to  which  it  was  necessary  to  have  recourse,  in  order  to 
have  so  many  important  questions  put  out  of  the  way  or  decided, 
the  proofs  we  have  had  of  the  novelty  and  of  the  human  origin 
of  so  many  articles  of  faith,  all  this  might  still  authorize  us  in 
coming  to  a  close,  to  deny,  as  we  have  done  so  often  in  the 
course  of  this  history,  both  that  unity  and  that  invariability. 
But  here  let  us  admit,  that  both  Roman  Catholicism  is  one,  and 
that  Roman  Catholicism  is  invariable.  Viewing  the  subject  in 
the  light  we  have  already  indicated,  its  adversaries  will  only  be 
all  the  stronirer  as  such.  If  Roman  Catholicism  be  one,  there 
is  but  one  way  of  being  a  Roman  Catholic — it  is  to  have  an 
equal  faith  in  all  that  it  teaches ;  it  is  to  be  ready  to  eay  yea, 
and  amen,  not  only  to  the  four  or  five  chief  doctrines  that  char- 
acterize, in  the  gross,  the  Romish  creed,  but  to  all  the  secondary 
doctrines  that  Rome  has  deduced  from  these,  and  to  all  tlic  de- 
velopments that  she  has  given  to  them.  Thanks  to  infallibiiity, 
all  is  of  a  piece  ;  it  is  a  gigantic  arch  from  which  you  cannot  re- 
move a  stone,  not  even  the  smallest,  without  bringing  the  whole 
to  the  ground.  Reduced  to  regular  shape  in  virtue  of  the  same 
authority,  all  the  Church's  doctrines  have  an  equal  right  to  your 
absolute  submission.  You  cannot  doubt  one,  without  thereby 
doubting  the  authority  which  enjoins  your  believing  it ;  you  can- 
not reject  one,  without  at  the  same  time  subverting  the  whole 
edifice  of  infallibility ;  for  if  the  Church  could  err  on  a  single 
point,  however  minute,  there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  she  may 


CuAr.  VH.  15G4.  CONCLUSION.  r>?,1 

not  liavc  crrod  on  others.  Deny  that  minute  point,  .intl  you  are 
no  longer  a  Roman  Cathohc,  seeing  you  thereby  abandon,  in  fact, 
the  principle,  witiiout  whicli  your  Chureli  is  nothing  more  than 
any  one  ot"  the  fractions  of  the  lielonnation. 

It  would,  then,  could  we  but  compel  people  to  be  consistent, 
it  would  at  the  present  day  bo  an  easy  thing  to  shake  and  sub- 
vert Roman  Catholicism.  Among  all  the  objections  scattered 
throughout  this  volume,  if  there  be  one,  a  single  one  that  is  well 
founded,  it  is  in  reality  as  if  they  all  were  so.  Let  the  Triden- 
tine  Fathers  have  been  mistaken  once  or  a  Inuulred  times,  it 
matters  little  which,  in  either  case  they  were  fallible.  Let  a 
Roman  Catholic  admit  that  we  are  right  on  one  point,  or  a  hun- 
dred points,  it  matters  little  whicli,  he  has  admitted  his  disbelief 
in  the  infallibility  of  his  Clmrch.  He  has  examined,  he  has 
made  his  choice — he  is  a  Protestant,  for  he  has  admitted  the 
fundamental  point  of  Protestantism.  If  he  stops  there,  if  he 
continues  to  believe  himself,  or  to  call  himself  a  child  of  the 
Church  of  Rome,  it  is  because  he  dares  not,  or  knows  not,  or 
does  not  wish  to  follow  out  consequences  to  their  legitimate  end. 

But  if  we  reckon  up  all  who,  from  timidity,  dare  not,  or  who 
iVom  ignorance  know  not,  or  who  from  indillcrence  desire  not 
to  do  this,  alas  I  shall  we  not  find  they  form  nearly  the  whole  ? 
Let  us  not  therefore  indulge  any  illusion  as  to  the  results  of  our 
efforts.  Twenty  yeai^  ago  the  ruin  of  Roman  Catholicism  was 
spoken  of  as  quite  a  simple  thing,  inevitable,  close  at  hand  ; 
people  M'ould  readily  have  fixed  the  very  year.  No  doubt  it  will 
fall.  AVe  should  consider  that  we  insulted  both  the  Bible  and 
reason  were  we  to  find  ourselves  thinking  for  a  moment  that 
victory  will  not  remain  with  them.  It  will  fall — but  when  ? 
If  it  has  little  faith  in  the  Go.spel,  seeing  it  tramples  "it  under 
foot  in  so  many  things,^  little  fiiith  even  in  many  of  its  own  doc- 
trines, as  we  have  superabundantly  proved,  it  has  faith  in  itself, 
in  its  unity,  true  or  false,  in  its  powerful  organization,  in  its  em- 
pire over  the  masses,  and  all  this  goes  a  very  great  way.  No 
doubt  we  have  often  enough  shewn  how  those  men,  whom  it  as- 
sembled together  three  centuries  ago,  for  the  purpose  of  fixing 
and  giving  consistency  to  its  faith,  despaired  of  their  work.  And 
yet,  had  we  related  in  detail  the  close  of  their  last  assembly,  \\c 
should  have  had  to  represent  them  as  united,  in  high  spirits, 
grasping  each  other  by  the  hand,  embracing  each  other  with 
tears  of  surprise  and  joy.  From  the  midst  of  those  groping 
eflbrts,  those  quarrels,  those  critical  conjunctures  of  every  kind, 
there  came  forth  at  last  somethiiifj  which,  riijht  or  wroii"-,  mi^^ht 

*  "I  would  give  my  two  hands  to  be  able  to  bcliovo  in  .To?ns  Christ, 
as  firml}'  as  the  pope  does  not  believe  in  liim." — Luther,  Tabic  Talk: 

7* 


538  HISTORY   OF    THE   COUNCIL  OF   TRENT.  Book.  VI. 

be  presented  to  the  world  as  unity.  No  more  was  wanted.  The 
man  whom  they  had  dreaded  most,  the  old  head  of  the  opposition, 
the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine,  himself  droAV  up  and  chanted  the  ac- 
clamations with  which  the  sitting  was  closed.  From  the  top  of 
her  new  plastered  citadel,  Rome  again  ventured  to  look  her  foes 
in  the  face,  and  the  last  words  of  the  council  were,  "  Anathema  I 
anathema  I" 

But,  thanks  be  to  God,  that  citadel  which  was  raised  at  Trent, 
is  formidable  to  him  only  who  looks  at  it  from  a  distance  and 
from  below ;  it  is  from  at  hand,  and  from  above,  that  we  have 
tried  to  see  it  ourselves,  and  to  show  it  to  others.  Hard  by  the 
mountain  of  Trent  there  towers  the  triple  mountain  of  Scripture, 
history,  and  reason.  Thither  we  have  sought  to  conduct  our 
readers.  We  ascended — the  other  grew  less ;  and  we  had  not 
reached  the  top,  when  our  eye  plunged  right  among  the  ram- 
parts with  which  Rome  has  covered  hers.  Our  readers  will  re- 
member all  that  we  then  perceived  of  incoherence  in  the  plan, 
of  vice  in  the  details,  of  fragility  in  the  foundations  of  the  loftiest 
towers.  It  was  not  without  effort  and  vexation,  they  may  be 
assured,  that  we  viewed  so  often  and  so  pertinaciously  the  earth 
rather  than  the  heavens  ;  it  cost  us  not  a  little  to  have  to  bend 
to  the  rugged  exigencies  of  polemics,  those  doctrines  of  peace,  of 
love,  of  life,  which  God  has  called  us  to  publish,  in  a  very  dif- 
ferent strain,  from  the  pulpit.  But,  we  can  call  him  to  witness, 
never  has  the  hatred  of  error  been  converted  under  our  pen, 
never,  above  all,  in  our  heart,  into  hatred  of  those  who  profess 
it ;  and  if  we  have  succeeded  in  inspiring  others  with  our  senti- 
ments, as  we  hope  we  have  succeeded  in  justifying  our  ideas,  it 
will  not  be  Avith  the  cry  of  the  Tridentine  Fathers,  "Anathema! 
anathema  I"  but  with  the  prayer,  that  God  Avill  enlighten,  touch, 
pardon,  and  bless,  that  our  readers  will  shut  this  book. 


INDEX. 


Absolution,  is  it  absolute  or  condition- 
al ?  pp.  25r),256  ;  its  deplorable  results, 
257  ;  admissions  with  respect  to  it  niiide 
by  Bossuct,  Innocent  III.,  and  in  tiiu  Ibr- 
muhi  of  Indulgences  in  1517,  2-38. 

Abuses  which  would  now  be  thought  fab- 
ulous, 307. 

Adrian  VI.,  his  character,  4,  5  ;  the  exter- 
mination of  the  Lutherans  his  last  re- 
sort, 6  ;  Pallavicini's  opinion  of  him,  G  ; 
opposed  to  calling  a  Council,  and  why, 
7  ;  his  death,  7. 

Albert  of  Brandenburg,  Archbishop  of  May- 
ence,  sends  his  procurators  to  Trent,  33. 

Alexander  VI.,  his  character  a  blot  on  the 
popedom  to  this  day,  35  ;  how  treated 
by  the  Popes  in  otficial  acts,  30. 

Ambrose,  St.,  on  the  Scriptures,  79,  9G. 

Anathema,  how  understood  by  the  Greeks, 
and  how  by  St.  Paul,  106,  107  ;  hesita- 
tion of  the  Council  with  respect  to  such 
a  sanction  being  appended  to  its  decrees, 
107  ;  decrees  of  reformation  not  to  bear 
anathema,  108 ;  no  anathemas  on  the 
worship  of  saints,  none  on  that  of  im- 
ages, none  on  purgatory,  527. 

Apocryphal  books,  opinions  of  the  an- 
cients, 81. 

Arbues,  Peter,  the  ferocious  organizer  of 
the  Inquisition,  canonized  in  the  seven- 
teenth century,  407. 

.\rian,  Pope  Liberius,  one  for  four  years, 
38. 

.\rianism  condemned  by  the  Council  of 
Nice,  23. 

Aihanasian  Creed  read  at  the  opening  of 
the  Council,  56  ;  furnishes  no  arms 
against  Protestants,  but  is  j-ather  a 
weapon  in  their  hands,  50. 

Alhanasius  condemned  by  the  Council  of 
Tyre.  23 ;  his  precise  language  on  the 
sufficiency  of  the  Scriptures,  bO. 

Augsburg,  Diets  at,  13,  190;  Confession 
of,  13  ;  taken  by  Maurice  of  Sa.xonv, 
268. 

Augustine  the  least  Roman  Catholic  of  the 
Fathers,  45  ;  his  opinion  of  Councils, 
46  ;  on  the  Scriptures,  79  ;  his  language 
absolute,  79,  96  ;  recommends  the  study 
of  the  Hebrew  and  Greek  Scriptures  as  a 
correction  of  the  Latin,  88. 

Austria  sends  no  bishops  to  Vicenza,  17. 

Authority,  the  question  of  its  source  lett 
undecided  at  Trent,  and  still  undecided 
by  the  Roman  Catholics,  50  ;  in  the  Ro- 
man Catholic  sense  of  the  word  proved 
to  be  an  illusion,  63-69  ;  its  alleged  ne- 
cessity disproved,  69-76;  striking  illus- 
tration of  the  Roman  system  of  author- 
ity. 404;  contentions  about  the  Pope's 
anihority,  460 


Baptism  held  to  efface  original  sin,  119; 
uribaptized  infants,  how  dispo.sed  of, 
1"20;  ba])tism  administered  in  the  prim- 
itive Church  only  on  Easter-day  and 
Whitsunday,  121  ;  inference  from  this 
fact,  121. 

Baronius  makes  tradition  the  foundation 
of  the  Scriptures,  82. 

Basil,  St.,  his  appeal  to  Scripture  alone,  79. 

Bavarian  ambassador  at  the  Council  join.«i 
in  demanding  the  concession  of  the  cup, 
326,  327. 

Beauty,  worship  of,  517. 

Bellannine  writes  the  preface  to  SixMis 
Quintus's  edition  of  the  Vulgate,  and  o.t]- 
mits  inaccuracies,  92. 

Beza  at  the  colloquy  of  Poissy,  his  strong 
position,  291. 

Bible,  by  it  only  can  the  Council  of  Trent 
be  subverted  altogether,  62  ;  the  Bible  to 
be  interp-eted  only  by  the  Church,  and 
yet  tlrst  given  us  to  interpret,  64  ;  the 
Bible  addressed  to  every  body,  70  ;  with 
authority  the  Bible  eclip.sed,  with  libertv 
never,  74  ;  authority  of  the  Bible  anil 
that  of  Rome  deplorably  identified,  70  ; 
Homage  to  the  Bible.  78  :  the  Bible,  how 
reconunended  by  the  Fathers,  79  ;  Latin 
Bibles  made  to  contradict  themselves, 
88 ;  old  and  new  views  of  the  Latin  as 
compared  with  Hebrew  and  Greek  ver- 
sions, 88  ;  the  Bible  at  the  disposition 
of  all,  94  ;  recommended  by  the  Fathers, 
95-98  ;  the  decree  of  Trent  on  the  read- 
ing of  the  Bible  more  discreet  than  the 
Roman  Churcli  has  been  since,  99 ; 
enmity  of  the  popedom  to  the  Bible, 
99-104  ;  Bible  anathemas.  107  ;  appeals 
froni  tradition  to  the  Bible  anathema- 
tized, 108  ;  Bible  language  not  to  be  em- 
ployed for  pleasantry,  sorcery,  or  Hattcrv, 
108,  109. 

Bishops,  preaching  their  principal  duty. 
117,  484;  institution  of,  dilliculty  in 
elaborating  the  canon,  and  connnotion 
caused  by  the  attempt,  397  ;  a  bishop 
accused  of  a  serious  crime  shall  be 
judged  by  the  Pope,  484.  See  Episco- 
pate. 

Bishops'  Courts,  their  origin,  240;  their 
encroachmeius,  241. 

Bologna,  Council  transferred  from  Trent 
to  Bologna,  184  ;  only  thirty-four  bishops 
meet  there,  188. 

Brandenburgh,  Elector  of,  his  envoys  ap- 
ponr  at  the  Council,  243  ;  their  spokes- 
man displeases  everybody,  243. 

Budoa,  the  Bishop  of,  exclaims  against 
TriMit,  and  parodies  the  threatenings  of 
Isaiah  against  Jerusalem  in  denouncing 
it.  449. 


540 


INDEX. 


Canon  of  Scripture,  discussion  upon  it, 
83  ;  uncertainty  felt  by  Romanists  re- 
garding it,  84. 

Canons  appended  to  the  doctrinal  chapters 
on  the  Mass,  remarks  on  them,  346-349. 

Carafla,  Peter,  succeeds  Marcellus  II.  as 
Paul  IV.,  274— See  Paul  IV. 

Cardinalate,  historical  notices,  403  ;  a  se- 
vere revision  of  laws  and  customs  re- 
lating to  cardinals  demanded,  474. 

Catechism  and  decrees  difTer,  225;  com- 
position of  catechism  referred  to  the 
Pope,  53 I.- 
Catherine de  JMedicis  demands  from  Pius 
IV.,  in  1561,  nearly  all  that  the  reformed 
require,  289. 

Celibacy  not  man's  normal  state,  427  ; 
imposed  on  two  sets  of  persons,  427  ; 
celibacy  a  suicide  of  the  saddest  kind, 
428 ;  Hurler's  eloquence  on  celibacy 
neutralized  by  his  details,  428  ;  cruelty 
of  the  cloister,  430 ;  piet^*  nowhere  more 
miserably  carnal,  430  ;  celibacy  of  the 
priests,  how  can  it  be  imposed  by  a  hu- 
man authority  ?  431 ;  the  saddest  of  all  the 
yokes  imposed  by  Rome,  432  ;  doctrine 
of  St.  Paul,  433  ;  experience  of  Roman- 
ist and  Protestant  countries,  435 ;  hor- 
ror for  marriage  in  a  priest,  437. 

Charles  V.  blames  the  Nuremberg  reform- 
atory decree,  8  ;  his  insolent  treatment 
of  Clement  VII.,  and  wavering  policy 
as  respected  the  calling  of  a  Council, 
9-14  ;  compels  regulations  on  preceden- 
cy, 27  ;  supersedes  the  Pope  in  judging 
the  Archbishop  of  Cologne,  30  ;  coquets 
Avith  the  Protestants,  34  ;  refuses  an 
offer  of  12,000  men  from  the  Pope,  42  ; 
becomes  absolute  master  of  Germany, 
189  ;  his  agents  insult  the  Pope  at  Bo- 
logna, 193 ;  still  looks  to  the  Council  for 
unity,  and  publishes  the  Interim,  197  ; 
negotiates  with  the  Pope,  200  ;  his  dis- 
content, 201  ;  abolishes  the /7i?em«,  269  ; 
is  pronounced  a  heretic  by  Paul  IV., 
276  ;  makes  a  truce  with  France,  276  ; 
abdicates,  277  ;  his  doubtful  character 
as  a  Roman  Catholic,  277. 
Chateaubriand  on  absolution,  254 ;  on 
prayers  in  Latin,  353  ;  on  prayers  to 
saints  and  images,  504. 
Christendom,  how  represented  at  Trent, 
21  ;  people  of  Roman  Catholic  Chris- 
tendom for  1200  years  without  any 
voice  in  the  election  of  their  chief  pas- 
tors, 23. 
Chrysostom,  no  proof  of  true  faith  but  by 

holy  Scripture,  80,  96. 
Church,  what  is  it  in  the  eye  of  God?  75. 
Clement  VII.,  his  character,  7  ;   his   en- 
mity to  Charles  V.,  humiliations,  and 
dissimulation,  8-12  ;  diverts  the  emper- 
or from  the  idea  of  a  Council,  12  ;  re- 
commends the  execution  of  the  imperial 
edict,  14  ;  unites  himself  with  France, 
falls  sick,  and  has  his  last  days  embit- 
tered by  the  defection  of  England,   15  ; 
his  apprcrs'al  of  Henry  the  Eighth's  di- 
vorce proved  by  Burnet,  15. 
Clement  Vlll.  publishes  a  corrected  edi- 
tion of  the  Vulgate,  92. 
Clergy,    corruption   of,   44;  contrast  be- 


tween the  Roman  Catholic  and  the  Pro- 
testant in  the  reception  they  meet  with 
from  their  flocks,  252. 
Close  of  the  Council  voted  unanimously, 

461. 
Combination  of  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine 
Avith  the  King  of  Spain,  the  Emperor, 
and  the  King  of  Bohemia,  against  the 
Pope,  404. 

Commendams,  their  history,  173. 

Coninmnion  under  both  kinds,  testimony 
of  the  Scriptures,  of  the  Fathers,  and 
of  ancient  Popes,  216;  historical  pro- 
gress, the  Church's  incompetency  to 
alter,  218  ;  motives  for  refusing  the  cup 
to  the  laity,  219  ;  its  concession  made  a 
primary  condition  of  their  return  by  the 
Protestants,  219  ;  question  resumed,  but 
mis-stated,  312,  321  ;  conditions  pro- 
posed by  its  partisans,  344  ;  referred  to 
the  Pope,  354. 

Conclaves,  internal  history  of,  205  ;  sel- 
dom so  divided  as  at  the  death  of  Paul 
III.,  200;  a  severe  reform  in  regard  to 
conclaves  demanded,  474. 

Conference  proposed  between  the  Roman- 
ist and  Protestant  doctors,  272. 

Confessional,  silence  of  the  Apostles,  245  ; 
its  uses  exaggerated,  252. 

Confirmation  of  the  Council's  decrees  by 
the  Pope  causes  the  utmost  anxiety, 
532  ;  Pius  IV.  disposed  to  grant  it  im- 
mediately, 532  ;  parties  in  Rome  op- 
posed to  the  confirmation,  532  ;  Cardi- 
nal de  Mula  and  others  recommend  it, 
533. 

Congregations  and  Sessions,  how  distin- 
guished, 43  ;  Council  divided  into  three 
congregations,  and  why,  52,  114. 

Constance,  Council  of,  2 ;  its  scandalous 
debaucheries  no  longer  permitted  or  pos- 
sible, 49. 

Convocations  of  the  Council,  first  under 
Paul  III.  in  1545,  20  ;  second  under  Ju- 
lius III.  in  1551,  209  ;  third  under  Pius 
IV.  in  1562,  268. 

Cordeliers  and  Jacobins,  quarrel  between 
them  about  original  sin  in  the  Virgin 
Mary  bursts  out  afresh,  123. 

Costume  regulated,  33. 

Council,  France  and  Spain  demand  from 
Pius  I V^.  a  new  Council,  not  the  resump- 
tion of  the  old,  286. 

Council,  it  distrusts  its  own  authority  and 
the  permanent  force  of  its  acts,  448. 

Council's  decrees,  all  men  prohibited  from 
making  any  commentaries,  glosses,  an- 
notations, scholia,  or  interpretations 
upon  them,  534. 

Deaconship,  the,  360. 

Degradations,  ecclesiastical,  some  small 
concessions  made,  242. 

Delegates  of  the  Holy  Sec,  this  title  given 
to  bishops  for  the  sake  of  maintaining 
intact  the  rights  of  the  Pope,  330. 

Delegation,  infallibility  by,  33. 

Demi-gallicanism  of  the  Spaniards,  its  in- 
structive history,  309. 

Dcsi)atchcs,  double,  open  and  secret,  sent 
from  Trent  to  Rome,  27. 

Disciplinary  and  doctrinal  decrees  inter- 


INDEX. 


r.ii 


mingled — untoward  results  of  lliis  lucd- 
loy,  55. 

Disciplinary  rcfiulations,  481. 

Di.si"ii)lin<',  nlbrination  of,  called  for  by  St. 
liernard,  5  ;  such  u  rcloriiiation  would 
have  led  men  into  the  domain  of  the 
fuith,  5  ;  Adrian  VI.  ailenipt.s  it,  but  in 
vain,  7  ;  reconiinended  to  the  Council  by 
I'anl  III.,  54  ;  no  anathemas  on  discip- 
linary decrees,  5'27. 

Dispensations  allowed  for  voting  by  pro- 
curation, 32. 

Dispensations,  matrimonial,  a  constant 
theme  of  complaint  amonj;  the  S))anish, 
German,  and  French  bisliops,  421. 

Divine  right — See  Residence. 

Divines  by  profession,  thcir  intervention 
in  the  Council  of  Trent,  84  ;  unanimotis 
in  recoiinising  the  inferiority  of  the  ajio- 
cryphai  books,  84  ;  divines  at  the  Coun- 
cil mucH  complained  of,  and  their  vio- 
lence restrained,  244. 

Di  v  isions  among  the  French  Romanists  on 
the  accession  of  Charles  IX.,  2b2. 

Divisions  in  the  Council  cause  alarm,  52  ; 
how  to  be  kept  out  of  sight,  52  ;  tho  coji- 
gres^atiojis  to  meet  with  shut  doors,  yet 
all  known  that  passed,  52  ;  national  di- 
visions, 58  ;  division  between  the  bish- 
ops and  the  divines  on  the  subject  of  the 
canon  of  Scripture,  83  ;  on  the  approba- 
tion to  be  given  to  the  Vulgate,  90  ;  on 
the  interpretation  of  Scripture,  93  ;  on 
the  title  of  the  Council,  109;  between 
the  bishops  and  the  monks  on  religious 
teaching,  115;  among  the  divines  on 
original  sin,  119;  in  the  Council  on 
"What  was  to  be  decreed  on  original  sin, 
122:  between  the  Cordeliers  and  Jaco- 
bins on  the  immaculate  conception, 
123. 

Dogmas,  Roman,  their  usual  course,  12G. 

Dreux,  battle  of,  celebrated  in  the  Council, 
but  its  importance  overrated,  412. 

Education  of  the  ministry  neglected  by 
theChurchof  Rome,  4G9  ;  establishment 
of  seminaries,  409. 

Encroachments  of  the  bishops'  courts,  241 . 

Ephesus,  Council  of,  its  decrees  framed  as 
resting  on  Scripture  alone,  80. 

Episcopal  jurisdiction,  complaints  against 
Rome,  202  ;  decrees  made  more  severe, 
yet  still  inellicient,  203. 

Episcopate,  its  historical  origin,  365 ;  equa- 
lity of  the  preshijtcri  and  cpiscopi  in  the 
writings  of  the  Apostles,  306 ;  the  Ro- 
man episcopate  not  an  order,  367  ;  the 
popedom  complicates  the  question,  309  ; 
great  agitation  on  the  subject  of  resi- 
dence, and  far  from  honourable  issue, 
39!^ ;  reference  on  the  divine  right  to 
what  had  passed  twelve  years  back,  399  ; 
three  fonnulas  on  the  institution  of  the 
episcopate,  411  ;  question  of  the  divine 
right  perpetually  recurs,  400-406.  See 
llesidc7ice. 

Eucharist,  subject  taken  up  amid  fierce 
agitation,  216  ;  decree  upon  it,  243.  See 
Mass. 

Faith,  men  of,  their  numbers  said  to  be 


daily  inrrrasing;  Ihry  difFcr  little  from 
those  who  do  not  believe,  535. 

False  citation  by  a  Pope,  98. 

Fariuse,  Cardinal,  snccrcds  Clement  VII. 
as  I'aul  HI.,  15— See  Paul  III. 

Fasting,  decree  ujion,  530. 

Ferdinand  11.  rcijuires  the  dismissal  of  nil 
questions  relative  to  the  ina.ss,  except 
that  of  the  cup,  343  ;  questions  said  to 
be  submitted  by  him  to  his  own  divines, 
414  ;  he  begins  to  give  way,  454. 

Festivals,  observance  of,  530. 

Florence,  to  regain  the  domination  of  it,  a 
leading  motive  with  Clement  Vll.,  9. 

France  returns  to  the  idea  of  a  national 
Council,  288  ;  accused  of  heresy  on  ac- 
count of  the  Colloquy  of  Poissy,  293  ; 
French  ambassadors  j)ronounce  a  long 
and  severe  satire  on  the  Council,  310; 
bold  demand  for  the  concession  of  the 
cup,  326,  343;  the  French  prelates  trillc 
with  the  Council,  343  ;  alarming  articb  s 
from  France  make  a  terrible  impresj^ioii 
on  the  Pope,  415 ;  France  thrown  on  the 
Pope  for  means  of  resisting  the  Reform- 
ation, on  the  dcathof  the  Duke  of  Guise, 
439,  440  ;  sarcastic  protest  by  France 
against  proposed  decree  on  the  secular 
princes,  478  ;  French  ambassadors  retire 
to  Venice,  489  ;  spirited  protest  against 
the  papal  denunciation  of  the  Queen  ol 
Navarre,  468  ;  influence  of  that  measure 
on  the  position  of  Ilenry  IV.,  488  ;  the 
Council  of  Trent  never  otiicially  received 
in  France,  526. 

Gallican  practice  with  regard  to  bishops 
accused  of  serious  crimes,  opposed  to 
the  decree  of  Trent,  464. 

Gallicanism,  inconsistencies  of,  300,  301. 

Galileans  attacked  by  Lainez  at  the  Coun- 
cil, 390  ;  they  are  proved  logically  wrong, 
392  ;  are  incensed,  393. 

Geneva  proposed  for  the  meeting  of  the 
Council,  15  ;  threatened  by  Pius  IV.;  its 
providential  preservation  in  the  midst 
of  powerful  enemies,  283  ;  incorruptibil- 
ity of  the  Genevese,  284. 

German  bishops  absent  themselves  from 
the  Council,  112;  a  special  summons 
addressed  to  them  displeases  Charles  V., 
112. 

Gospel  more  altered  by  Rome  than  by  all 
the  sects  with  which  the  Reformation 
has  been  reproached,  73. 

Grava7iiina  ccntujii  of  Germany,  11. 

Gregory  XIV.  presses  the  jiublication  of  a 
corrected  edition  of  the  Vulgate,  92. 

Grace,  propositions  on,  135-141. 

Henry  IT.  of  France  favours  Paul  III., 
and  promises  his  natural  daughter  Diana 
to  the  latter's  grandson,  190  ;  keeps  no 
measures  with  Julius  111.,  212  ;  prohib- 
its the  remittance  of  money  to  Rome, 
215  ;  is  courted  by  Julius  111.,  267;  with 
whom  he  makes  a  treaty,  208. 

Heresies,  their  extirpation  recommended 
to  the  Council  by  I'aul  III.,  53. 

Heretics,  their  extermination  the  last  re- 
sort of  Adrian  VI.,  7. 

Hermann,  archbishop  of  Cologne,  excom- 


INDEX. 


municated  by  Paul  III.,  but  acknowl- 
edged by  Charles  Y.,  112;  he  resigns, 
112. 

Images,  worship  of,  514-517. 

Immaculate  conception  of  the  Virgin,  dis- 
putes respecting  it,  122-126. 

Index  of  prohibited  books,  historical  re- 
view, 299-302  ;  advantage  taken  of  the 
subject  to  call  Protestants  to  the  Coun- 
cil as  authors,  but  to  no  purpose,  303  ; 
drawing  up  of  an  index  referred  to  the 
Pope,  531. 

Indulgences,  historical  review,  518-522  ; 
decree  upon,  and  singular  destiny  of  the 
question,  530. 

Infallibdity  not  held  so  rigorously  in  the 
sixteenth  century  as  now,  29  ;  openly 
arrogated  by  the  Popes,  37-39 ;  taught 
in  the  Roman  Catechism,  33  ;  practical- 
ly disowned  in  Rome  itself,  40 ;  not  be- 
lieved in  really  by  those  who  are  called 
men  of  faith,  535  ;  infallibility  all  of  a 
piece — one  point  shaken,  the  whole  falls, 
537. 

Infallibility  of  Councils  proclaimed  in  the 
opening  sermon  of  first  Session,  47,  48  ; 
pretended  approbation  of  the  Church  the 
last  seal  of  infallibility,  60. 

Infallibility  of  tlie  Council,  compromised 
by  petition  for  confirmation,  531,  533. 

Infallibility,  papal,  in  discipline  and  doc- 
trine, 35—10. 

Infants  dying  without  baptism,  questions 
relating  to  them,  120  ;  fact  relating  to 
tlie  primitive  administration  of  baptism, 
admitted  by  the  Catechismus  Romanus, 
120. 

Inquisition  established  by  Charles  V.  at 
Naples  and  in  the  Netherlands,  213  ; 
clung  to  by  Paul  IV.,  280  ;  its  abomina- 
ble hypocrisy,  407  ;  its  ferocious  organ- 
izer canonized  in  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, 407. 

Intention,  necessity  of  fact,  and  necessity 
of  intention,  in  the  sacraments,  156  ; 
what  avails  the  Church's  intention  in 
addressing  the  saints  ?  509-514. 

Interim,  its  origin,  provisions,  and  result, 
197;  left  to  destroy  itself,  197;  abol- 
ished, 269. 

Interpretation  of  Scripture — to  whom  does 
it  belong  ?  92  ;  here  the  divines  more  rea- 
.sonable  than  the  bishops,  92  ;  Fenelon's 
opinion  absurd,  93  ;  Scripture  declared 
useless  by  a  Norman  divine,  94  ;  the 
decree  virtually  says  the  same  thing,  94  ; 
opinions  of  Clement  of  Rome,  Polycarp, 
Ambrose,  Origen,  Isodorc  of  Pelusiuni, 
.Terome,  Augustine,  Chrysostom,  St. 
Bernard,  Gregory  the  Great,  Council  of 
Ai.v-la-Chapelle  in  816,  Ulphilas,  and 
Bede,  95-99. 

Invocation  of  saints,  497. 

Isodorus  of  Pelusium  thought  the  Bible  in- 
tended for  all,  96. 

Italians  accused  of  being  above  all  things 
Italians  in  the  Council,  58 ;  their  oath 
to  the  Pope,  59  ;  a  general  combination 
of  the  Italians  against  the  Spaniards  and 
the  French,  dreaded,  409. 

Italic  version  of  the  Scriptures,  87. 


Italy,  results  of  the  confessional  on  the 
morals  of  the  co-untry,  252  ;  its  modern 
paganism,  505. 

Jansenius  reproved  for  asserting  that  the 
Holy  See  sometimes  condemns  a  doc- 
trine solely  for  peace's  sake,  38  ;  con- 
demned by  the  infallible  Innocent  X.,  at 
the  instance  of  the  fallible  Pallavicini, 
40. 

Jubilee  for  the  success  of  the  Church  and 
of  the  emperor  proclaimed  by  Paul  III., 
129. 

Julius  III.  (del  Monte)  elected  pope,  207  ; 
his  change  of  character,  position,  and 
policy,  207-209;  convokes  the  new  Coun- 
cil as  a  continuation  of  the  old,  209  ; 
difference  between  Charles  V.  and  him 
in  their  views  of  the  Council,  209  ;  quar- 
rels with  Henry  II.  of  France,  21 1 ;  creates 
fourteen  cardinals  at  once,  267  ;  makes 
a  treaty  with  Henry  II.,  and'orders  the 
suspension  of  the  Council,  269  ;  names 
a  commission  for  internal  reforms,  270  ; 
is  consoled  for  his  disappointments  by 
the  submission  of  England  under  Mary, 
272  ;  dies,  and  is  succeeded  by  Marcellus 
II.,  272. 

Lainez  attacks  the  French  court  at  the 
Colloquy  of  Poissy,  292 ;  his  defence  of 
ultramontanism  in  the  Council,  390-393; 
he  defends  the  Pope's  authority,  455, 456 ; 
his  haughty  pretensions,  456. 

League,  its  origin  in  France,  293. 

Legates,  Hercules  de  Gonzaga  and  Cardi- 
nal de  Puv  appointed  for  the  council  by 
Pius  IV.,  288. 

Leo  X.  engages  to  hold  a  Council,  4  ;  Lu- 
ther's idea  of  his  position  as  Pope,  and 
his  impotency  as  a  reformer,  5. 

Liberius  Pope,  for  four  years  an  Arian, 
and  anathematized  by  St.  Ililarj-,  38. 

Liberty  and  authority  contrasted,  t2  ;  false 
pretensions  to  liberty  in  the  Roman 
Church,  105. 

Lorraine,  Cardinal  of,  attempts  to  refute 
Beza  at  Poissy,  291  ;  his  arrival  at  Trent 
contemplated  with  horror,  396;  becomes 
to  Trent  with  the  retinue  of  a  prince, 
and  surprises  by  his  mildness,  400  ;  his 
perplexity  at  the  part  people  assigned 
him,  407  ;  his  journey  to  the  emperor 
viewed  with  alarm,  414 ;  returns  and 
maintains  impenetrable  secrecy,  415  ; 
disappointed  of  being  made  legate,  retires 
in  disgust  to  Venice,  447  ;  his  duplicity 
towards  Pius  IV.,  449  ;  adopts  a  concili- 
atory course  towards  all,  454  ;  his  in- 
tervention sought  for  by  the  Pope,  476  ; 
takes  a  leading  part  at  the  close,  538. 

Luther  and  St.  Bernard  compared,  5  ;  his 
constancy,  16  ;  his  ideal  of  a  Council, 
27 ;  joy  of  the  Council  at  the  news  of  his 
death,  61 ;  Luther  and  transubstantia- 
tion,  222. 

Madrucci,  Cardinal,  bishop  of  Trent, 
does  the  honours  of  the  place,  21. 

Marcellus  II.  (Marcellus  Ccrvini)  elected 
Pope  ;  his  character,  views,  addiction  to 
astrology,  and  death,  273. 


INDKX. 


543 


Marriage,  debates  on  the  doctrine  of,  open- 
ed, 417  ;  is  it  a  sacrament?  418;  endless 
impcdiinenls  to  it,  41'J  ;  is  it  indissolu- 
ble .'  420  ;  proves  Home  to  be  no  longer 
omnipoieut,4'24  ;  restrictions  and  relax- 
ations side  by  side,  425,  4'2(i ;  discussion 
resumed,  447  ;  studied  obscurity  as  to 
clandestine  marriages,  472 ;  doctrinal 
decree  with  its  twelve  canons  and  ana- 
thema examined,  481  ;  disciplinary  arti- 
cles. 483. 

Mariolatry,  492,  507. 

Mass— the  mass  and  the  supper,  233  ;  ex- 
tremes of  pomp  and  paltriness  in  the 
celebration  of  the  mass,  235  ;  adoration 
of  the  host — honour  and  adoration  not 
to  be  confounded,  237  ;  the  worshipped 
wafer  becomes  a  god,  238. 

Mass,  the,  does  it  reproduce  the  supper? 
332  ;  can  it  be  found  in  the  Bible  ?  335  ; 
analysis  of  the  four  alleged  proofs  of  it, 
337-339  ;  glaring  difliculty  and  proposed 
evasion,  339 ;  atmosphere  in  which  the 
decrees  were  elaborated,  341  ;  four  opin- 
ions formed,  342  ;  regulations  and  ana- 
themas relative  to  the  mass,  346,  354. 
See  Transubstantiation. 

Meats,  distinction  of,  singular  discrepan- 
cy between  the  Council  and  St.  Paul, 
530. 

Melancthon  hazards  concessions,  13. 

Monte,  Cardinal  del,  is  appointed  legate  to 
the  Council,  20  ;  his  name  suggests  the 
application  of  an  ancient  apologue,  22  ; 
celebrates  the  opening  mass,  43  ;  play 
upon  his  name  in  the  opening  sermon, 
48  ;  is  elected  Pope  on  the  death  of  Paul 
III.,  207.     See  Julius  III. 

Morone,  Cardinal,  appointed  legate  in  the 
place  of  the  cardinal  of  Mantua,  446  ; 
gives  offence  by  proceeding  to  Inspruck, 
446  ;  returns  with  only  vague  answers 
for  the  Pope,  452. 

Musso  Cornelio,  bishop  of  Bitonto,  preach- 
es the  opening  sermon  at  the  first  con- 
vocation, 43  ;  his  absurdity  and  impiety, 
46,  47  ;  yet  only  the  candid  expression  of 
thesystem,47  ;  his  conceits  and  oddities, 
48. 

Naclantus,  Bishop  of  Chioggia,  treats  as 
impious  tradition  being  put  on  an  equal- 
ity with  Scripture,  109  ;  he  refuses  to 
say  ;j/aceHo  the  decree  on  the  Scriptures, 
109. 

Naples,  the  viceroy  proposes  that  its  bish- 
ops should  send  four  to  represent  them 
in  the  Council,  32  ;  this  not  allowed  by 
the  Pope,  32. 

Navarre,  Queen  of,  summoned  to  appear 
at  Rome  as  a  heretic,  487. 

Nice,  Council  of,  only  three  Latin  bishops 
there,  23  ;  its  decrees  framed  as  resting 
on  Scripture  alone,  80. 

Nuncios  instead  of  legates  sent  into  Ger- 
many on  the  occasion  of  the  Interim, 
200  ;' their  ill  reception,  201. 

Nuremberg,  Diet  of,  6,  7. 

Oath  taken  by  the  Italian  members  of  the 
Council,  58 ;  made  a  ground  of  nullity 
by  many  authors,  59. 


Observance  of  tlie  decrees  enjoined  on 
princes  and  l)ishops,  530. 

Uticumenical  Councils,  22-24. 

<  )rders  a  true  sacrament  or  jiot  ?  357  ;  their 
degrees,  301  :  difliculties,  362;  consist- 
ency found  impossible  in  framing  the 
decree,  461-400  ;  theological  difllcullies, 
466. 

Origen,  his  opinion  of  the  reading  of  the 
Bible,  461. 

Original  sin,  questions  upon,  118  ;  nothing 
to  be  directly  taught  on  it,  but  only  heret- 
ical ideas  condemned,  121  ;  five  decrees, 
quarrel  about  the  immaculate  concejition 
revived,  P22  ;  historical  retrospect,  123- 
126. 

Paganism  of  Romanism  and  of  Rome, 
504-518.  ' 

Paul  III.  (Farne.sc),  his  character,  15,  10  ; 
summons  the  Archbishop  of  Cologne,  30  ; 
his  nepotism,  35  ;  scandalizes  all  men — 
could  they  believe  in  his  infallibility  ?  40, 
41  ;  sends  legates  to  open  the  Council, 
43 ;  recommends  three  points  to  the 
Council,  53 ;  tact  shewn  by  him  in  the 
number  of  Italians  sent  to  the  Council, 
57  ;  ordains  the  publication  of  the  Coun- 
cil's decrees  in  spite  of  their  publication 
at  Trent,  111  ;  his  disquiet  about  the 
Council,  181  ;  affects  to  mediate  between 
the  prelates  at  Bologna  and  those  at 
Trent,  188  ;  allies  himself  with  France  ; 
190  ;  offers  to  proclaim  Charles  V.  King 
of  England,  192  ;  his  death  and  charac- 
ter, 204. 

Paul  IV.  (Caraffa)  succeeds  Marcellus  II., 
274 ;  his  character,  274  ;  appoints  a  com- 
mission of  150  members  against  simony, 
275  ;  embroils  himself  with  Charles  V., 
and  curses  the  Spaniards  as  schismatics 
and  heretics,  270-278 ;  seeks  to  make 
the  Council  a  bugbear  to  overawe  the 
princes,  278  ;  disposes  of  kingdoms,  and 
claims  the  appointment  of  the  emperor, 
279  ;  is  overmatched  by  France  and 
Spain,  and  chagrined  at  the  state  of  En- 
gland, Germany,  France,  and  Italy,  280  ;  ■ 
clings  to  the  In<iuisition,  and  dies,  280  ; 
his  statue  insulted,  281. 

Penance,  alleged  scriptural  proofs,  245  ; 
misrepresentations,  247  ;  in  what  sense 
is  it  a  sacrament  ?  249 ;  diversities  of 
opinion  upon  it,  251.    See  Confessional. 

Philip  II.  unites  with  the  Pope  in  acceler- 
ating the  close  of  the  Council,  488. 

Pius  IV.  (John  de  Medicis)  succeeds  Paul 
IV.  in  1559,  his  character,  position,  and 
policy,  261,  282;  threatened  with  a  na- 
tional council  in  France,  2S2  ;  urges  the 
seizure  of  Geneva,  283  ;  announces  the 
re-assembling  of  the  Council,  but  meets 
with  more  objections  than  ever,  2S5  ; 
decides  on  opening  the  Council,  297  ; 
thrown  into  the  old  track  by  its  dissen- 
sions, 308  ;  his  use  of  money  as  a  means 
of  inrtuence,  310;  charges  his  legates 
with  mismanagement,  314  ;  augments 
his  troops,  and  tries  to  league  all  Italy 
against  Spain,  340  ;  urges  his  legates  to 
hasten  the  close  of  the  ('ouncil,341  ;  im- 
p.Ttienl  at  their  slowm^ss,  413  ;  rebuked 


544 


INDEX. 


by  a  dying  cardinal,  440;  severely  rated 
by  the  emperor,  441-443  ;  seeks  a  meet- 
ing with  him  at  Bologna,  447  ;  protests 
against  the  peace  between  Charles  IX. 
and  the  French  reformed,  447  ;  impli- 
cated in  the  quarrel  between  the  French 
and  Spanish  ambassadors,  458 ;  sum- 
mons the  Queen  of  Navarre  to  Rome  as 
a  heretic,  467  ;  dreads  the  election  of  his 
successor  by  the  Council,  489  ;  circum- 
vented and  dismayed  when  the  Council's 
decrees  come  for  confirmation,  533. 

Placentia,  Duke  of,  murdered  in  his  own 
palace,  189. 

Placentia  occupied  by  the  imperial  troops, 
189. 

Plurality  of  benefices  not  to  be  eluded,  171. 

Plurality  of  Popes  has  happened  twenty- 
four  times,  39. 

Poissy,  colloquy  of,  290-295. 

Pole,  Cardinal,  appointed  legate  to  the 
Council,  19. 

Pope,  contentions  about  his  authority,  455- 
464  ;  difficulties  arising  from  the  relative 
position  of  the  Pope  and  Council  in  the 
publication  of  the  decrees,  528. 

Popedom,  its  unique  position,  315  ;  its  po- 
litical uses,  316  ;  not  a  vestige  of  the 
popedom  in  the  New  Testament,  370  ; 
St.  Peter  among  the  Apostles,  371-374  ; 
chronological  difficulties,  tradition,  377  ; 
difficulties  in  the  Roman  point  of  view, 
379  ;  co-existence  of  patriarchs  and  the 
Pope,  383  ;  principles  brought  out,  3S3  ; 
Tridentine  decree  says  nothing  of  the 
Pope,  384 ;  Archbishop  of  Grenada  ap- 
peals to  the  Fathers  against  the  superi- 
ority claimed  for  the  Pope,  385  ;  the  Pope 
everj'thing  or  nothing,  387  ;  the  legates 
would  fain  evade  the  question,  388  ;  the 
ultramontanists  confounded,  Lainez  re- 
plies, 389-393  ;  the  Galileans  incensed, 
394  ;  a  plunge  into  false  principles,  395. 

Port-Royalists  spoke  of  the  Bible  as  the 
ancient  fathers  and  Luther  spoke  of  it, 
103. 

Preaching  the  principal  duty  of  bishops, 
117. 

Precedency,  quarrel  about,  457  ;  questions 
to  remain  as  they  stood  before  the  Coun- 
cil met,  532. 

Prelates,  disparity  among  them,  309. 

Prierio,  one  of  Leo  the  Tenth's  divines, 
makes   Scrijjture  derive   its   force  and 
autlTority  from  the  Roman  Church  and 
Pontiff,  82. 
Priesthood,  is  the  Roman,  in  Scripture? 
358,  359  ;  first  the  priesthood,  then  a  sac- 
rifice, 363. 
Promptsault,  the  Abbe,  defends  the  authen- 
ticating of  the  Vulgate,  90. 
Proponentibus  dispute,   its   origin,   298 ; 

progress,  479  ;  close,  485. 
Prote.stant  ambassadors,  disquieting  inti- 
macy between  them  and  those  of  the 
emperor,  267. 
Protestant  doctors  arrive  at  Trent,  and 

business  stops,  208. 
Protestantism,  the  mobility  with  which  it 
is  charged,  accepted  by  St.  Augustine, 
40. 
Protestant  pastors  and  Romanist  priests. 


their  respective  acceptability  and  influ- 
ence among  their  flocks,  252. 

Protestants,  convocation  of  the  Council 
intimated  to  them,  27  ;  did  they  engage 
to  submit  to  the  Council  ?  50  ;  Charles 
V.  would  have  them  send  deputies  to  the 
Council,  213;  the  question  of  their  com- 
ing resumed,  220  ;  their  demands,  265, 
206;  their  contempt  for  the  Council. 
452. 

Publication  of  the  decrees  ordered  by  the 
Pope,  as  if  his  concurrence  w-ere  abso- 
lutely indispensable,  111. 

Purgatory,  commission  for  elaborating  the 
decree,  479  ;  purgatory  strangely  omit- 
ted in  Scripture,  491  ;  no  anathema  on 
it,  527. 

Ragg AZONi, Bishop  of  Nazianzum, preach- 
es the  triumphal  sermon  at  the  close  of 
the  Session,  529. 

Reformation  decree  of  the  twenty-fourth 
Session  shows  some  progress,  469 ; 
forty  disciplinary  articles  sent  by  the 
legates  to  the  ambassadors,  474  ;  the 
forty  articles  reduced  to  twenty-one, 
475  ;  reformatory  articles,  463  ;  reform 
of  the  religious  orders,  524. 

Reformation,  the,  contrasted  with  Rome 
in  regard  to  the  education  of  the  Church's 
pastors,  469. 

Residence  of  bishops,  133  ;  to  be  made 
more  general,  304  ;  the  question,  is  resi- 
dence of  divine  right  ?  hotly   debated, 

305  ;  voting  on  this  question  in  reality  in 
favor  of  the  divine  right,  but  this  evaded, 

306  ;  the  Pope  pronounces  neither  way, 
300;  question  still  undecided,  307;  ques- 
tion resumed  by  the  Spanish  prelates 
against  the  wish  of  Philip  II.,  .340; 
Philip  II.  sends  a  new  order  to  his  pre- 
lates to  allow  this,  to  Rome,  terrifying 
question  to  drop,  341  ;  great  agitation 
about  residence,  draft  of  decree,  398  ; 
subject  resumed,  409  ;  question  of  divine 
right  finally  withdrawn,  and  a  funda- 
mental article  of  the  Roman  system  left 
for  ever  unsettled,  463  ;  different  views 
taught  upon  it  at  this  day,  463 ;  the 
omission  of  so  important  a  point  totally 
indefensible,  463  ;  the  Spaniards  still 
hold  out,  467  ;  they  are  conjured  not  to 
protest,  and  agree  not  to  do  so,  468; 
Pallavlclni  rises  into  poetry  on  the  occa- 
sion, 467  ;  decree  on  residence  ineflcr- 
tive,  468 ;  immense  disappointment  at 
the  nullity  of  the  decree,  471. 

Rousseau's  infidelity  mitigated  by  his  edu- 
cation as  a  Protestant,  74, 

Sacred  language,  Christianity  has  none, 
353. 

Safe-conduct  asked  for  the  Protestants  in 
the  name  of  the  Council  and  the  Pope, 
214 ;  one  granted  them  under  another 
name,  b>it  not  binding  the  Pope,  220  ; 
safe-conduct  read  with  the  omission  of 
the  Pope's  name,  260  ;  new  safe-con- 
duct rendered  illusory  by  the  furtive  in- 
troduction of  a  nullifying  clause,  302. 

Saints,  Avorship  of,  497-513. 

Salmeron,  the  .Tesuit,  his  intrigues  conu 


INUliX. 


515 


))liuiiLil  of  hy  Ihc  i)rclalcs  in  Ihc  Doumil, 

Salva  semper  cIjiusc  always  re-occiirs. 
178  ;  imiilo  more  positive  lliaii  ever,  S.'Jd. 

Saxony,  EliiiUir  ol',  Kentenii'd  to  death, 
but  his  lil"v"  spared,  1^'J;  Ehn-tor  .Maurice 
(leelares  against  the  cin])eror,  and  takes 
Au^isburi;,  208. 

.Sax«)ny,  envoys  from,  their  language  at 
Trent,  200. 

iSeripture  conjoined  witli  tradition  as  the 
rule  of  faith,  78  ;  contrary  oi)inions  of 
Tertullian,  St.  Basil,  St.  Ambrose,  St. 
Augustine,  St.  (Jiirysostom,  St.  Atiia- 
nasius,  and  of  the  Councils  of  Nice, 
Ejihesus,  and  C;halccdon,  70-81;  Scrip- 
ture not  to  be  employed  in  pleasantry, 
sorcery,  llaltery  to  the  great,  &c.,  108, 
109. 

Secular  powers,  decree  for  their  reforma- 
tion, 477  ;  exorbitant  powers  claimed 
for  the  clergy,  477  ;  sarcastic  protest 
from  France,  478 ;  decree  withdrawn, 
47'J ;  encroachments  on  the  tjcculur 
jtowers,  525,  520. 

Seminaries  for  the  education  of  the  clergy, 
their  eslabli-shment,  40'J. 

Session  I.  Opening  of  the  Council,  and 
indiciion  of  next  .Session,  43. 

Session  II.  Manner  of  living  and  other 
matters  to  be  observed  during  the  Coun- 
cil, 49. 

Session  III.  Creed  recited,  57. 

Session  IV.  Canonical  Scriptures,  edition 
and  use  of  the  Sacred  Books,  77-113. 

Session  V.  Original  Sin,  Reformation, 
111-127. 

Session  VI.  Reformation,  Residence  of 
])ishoj)s,  .lustification,  132-149. 

Session  VII.  The  Sacraments  in  general, 
Baptism,  Confirmation,  Reformation, 
Covernment  of  Cathedral  Churches, 
&c.,  150-180. 

Session  VIII.  The  Translation  of  the 
Council,  181. 

Session  IX.  At  Bologna, 
the  Session,  187. 

Session  X.  Prorogation  of  the  Session,  188; 
the  Session  prorogued  during  the  good 
pleasure  of  the  Sacred  Council,  189. 

Session  XI.  Resumption  of  the  Council, 
210. 

Session  XII.  Prorogation  of  the  Session, 
214. 

Session  XIII.  Sacrament  of  the  Eucharist, 
Reformation,  01>ligations  of  Bishops, 
Clerks,  &c.,  Safe-conduct  to  Protest- 
ants, 210-243. 

Session  XIV.  Sacraments  of  Penance  and 
Extreme  Unt-tion,  Reformation,  Oflice 
of  Bishops,  Clerks,  Ac,  244-204. 

Session  XV.  Proroguing  the  Session,  Safe- 
conduct  to  Protestants,  200. 

Session  XVI.  Suspinsion  of  the  Council, 
209. 

Session  XVII.  Decree  for  Celebrating  the 
I'ouncil,  290. 

Session  XVIll.  The  Choice  of  Books ;  for 
inviting  all  men  on  the  public  faith  of 
the  CouncU,  302. 

Session  XIX.  Prorogation  "  for  just  and 
honorable  reasons,"  311 


Prorogation  of 


Session  XX.  Prorogation  of  the  Session, 
311. 

Session  XXI.  rommimion  un'lcr  both 
kintis,  Reforinatioii,  327;  pitiful  renulis 
of  the  Session,  329. 

Session  XXII.  The  Sacrifice  of  the  Maws, 
Reformation,  Reference  to  the  Pope, 
332-354. 

Session  XXlll.  Prorogueil  rijiht  tiints. 
Sacrament  of  Orders,  Reformation,  35.'j- 
400. 

Session  XXIV.  Sacrament  of  Matrimony, 
Reformation  of  Marriage,  Reformation. 
4GG-lfcO. 

Session  XXV.  Purgatory,  Invocation  of 
Saints,  Relics,  &c.,  Reformation,  Regu- 
lars and  Nuns,  &.C.,  Continuation  of  the 
Session,  Indulgences,  Choice  of  Fooil, 
Index  of  Books,  Catechism,  Breviary, 
Missal,  &c.,  Close  of  the  Council,  Acr 
clamations  and  final  Anathema,  490- 
538. 

Sessions  and  congregations,  how  <Iistin 
guished,  43. 

Simony,  Paul  IV.  appoints  a  connnission 
upon  it,  274. 

S])ain,  results  of  the  confessional  on  the 
morals  of  the  couTitry,  254. 

State  subjected  to  the  t;hurch  systematic- 
ally, 243  ;  decree  for  reforming  the  sec- 
ular powers,  477. 

Tertullian,  his  appeal  to  Scripture 
alone,  79. 

Tol(-ration  by  halves,  and  provisional,  im- 
jiossiblc  with  Rome,  cxcejjt  at  the  c.\ 
l)ense  of  consistency,  453. 

Tradition  conjoined  with  the  Bible  as  Die 
source  of  authority,  78  ;  is  tradition  fa- 
vorable to  itself?  79  ;  made  little  ac- 
count of  by  the  early  Fathers,  80  ;  its 
position  never  regulated,  81 ;  tradition 
in  its  present  sense  then  unknown,  81  ; 
the  discussion  long,  and  many  oiiinions, 
82 ;  first  made  e(]ual,  then  put  above 
Scripture,  82,  83  ;  tradition  itself  on  the 
Protestant  side,  97. 

Translation  of  the  Council  from  Trent  to 
Bologna  desired  by  the  Pope,  and  how 
cflTected,  181-180. 

TransubstantiatiQn,  definitively  voted  as 
true  under  Innocent  III.,  28;  the  foun- 
dation of  Roman  doctrine  on  the  Eu- 
charist, 210;  voted  .at  Trent  wiiiiout  a 
debate,  221  ;  an  attempt  to  explain  sets 
the  Donr.inicans  and  Franciscans  by  the 
ears,  221;  did  Luther  admit  it?  222; 
physical  objections,  223  ;  things  above 
reason,  and  contrary  to  rea.son,  distin- 
guished, 223  ;  transul)stantiation  con- 
trary to  Scripture,  224  ;  not  held  by  the 
Fathers,  229  ;  Rome  anathrmati/.es  her 
own  historians,  231  ;  a  priest's  belief  in 
transubstantiation,  235. 

Trent  again  -selected  for  the  Council  aOer 
ten  years'  interval,  and  why,  287. 

Ultuamontani.sm  of  the  Bishop  of  Bi- 
tonto's  oi>ening  .sermon,  48;  ultrumon- 
lanism  of  the  Popes.  292. 

Ultramontanisis  concede  the  conditional 
(alMbiliiv  of  Councils,  24:   confoiinded 


546 


INDEX. 


by  a  Spanish  and  a  Polish  bishop,  389  ; 
reassured  by  the  reasoning  of  Lainez, 
390. 

Unction,  extreme,  its  origin,  259 ;  its  in- 
consistencies, 261  ;  it  is  often  danger- 
ous, 261. 

Unity,  Roman  unity  of  the  present  day 
dates  from  tlie  Reformation,  44;  has  it 
entered  into  God's  purpose  that  there 
should  be  unity  in  the  Church  1  75  ; 
unity  of  the  popedom  a  human  inven- 
tion, and  quite  illusory,  75 ;  Roman 
Catholic  unity  denied,  536. 

Variations,  Protestant,  a  weak  answer 


to  attacks  against  the  popedom,  and  its 
doctrines,  73. 

Virgin,  worship  of,  not  in  Scripture,  493  ; 
nor  in  the  Fathers,  495 — See  Mariolatry. 

Voltaire,  his  infidelity  affected  by  his  hav- 
ing been  brought  up  a  Romanist,  74. 

Vulgar  tongue,  discussion  of  its  disuse  in 
the  mass,  &c.,  353. 

Vulgate,  its  history  down  to  the  time  of 
the  Council,  67 ;  urgency  of  the  decree 
respecting  it,  90  ;  results,  91  ;  subse- 
quent history  of  the  Vulgate,  91,  92. 


WURTEMBERG,  Duke    Of, 

deputies  at  Trent,  265. 


conduct  of  hia 


THE     END, 


DUE  DATE 


i\inv  z  i  mi 


^U  7 1993 


'^ 


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